Michael Gross named faculty director for the Center for Entrepreneurship

Michael Gross, a founding faculty member and associate professor of the undergraduate Department of Engineering, has been named the David and Leila Farr Faculty Director for the Wake Forest University Center for Entrepreneurship. “We are thrilled and know he will do a wonderful job in this important role,” said Dan Cohen, executive director of the Center for Entrepreneurship.

As faculty director, Gross seeks to build relationships across departments and programs to creatively think about what it means to be entrepreneurial broadly and how to achieve the Wake Forest motto of Pro Humanitate with an entrepreneurial mindset.

“Working together with people across the college to reimagine the undergraduate engineering educational experience, approaching engineering as a liberal art, and striving to embody the motto of Pro Humanitate has been such a rewarding experience and an exemplar to the engineering education community,” said Gross. “It is such an exciting opportunity to engage with students and colleagues in analogous work for Entrepreneurship.”

Gross has received the prestigious National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program Award, the Wake Forest University Research Award for Excellence, and the Wake Forest University Innovative Teaching Award.

In addition to materials and composites for energy applications, Gross researches activity-level, or situational, student motivation in STEM courses with the goal of directly applying motivation theory and empirical research findings to practical course design. More recently, he has worked closely with the Program for Leadership and Character to design and integrate character modules into the Engineering curriculum and train faculty on how to teach character to aspiring engineers. 

Gross is a highly active member of the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network (KEEN) and serves as a Wake Forest institutional leader to that network.