Dr. David Ricketts

Dr. David Ricketts is an Innovation Science Fellow in the Technology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard (TECH) under the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University, where he received his PhD degree in engineering and applied sciences. Currently, he is a professor at North Carolina State University, and holds appointments at Carnegie Mellon University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard University.

For the past decade, Dr. Ricketts has helped shape the Innovation in Science and Technology courses in Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, as well as found the civic innovation program. He teaches and speaks regularly on innovation and business strategy. He focuses on the role of the individual innovator and helps senior leaders develop new innovators and systemic innovation in their companies.

Prior to joining academia, Dr. Ricketts was a former head of R&D in the semiconductor industry, where he lead front-line innovators in product development and research departments, from initial concept and intellectual property (IP) development through to testing and customer service. His work on identifying and developing high-value products in the corporate environment provides a real-world context for his research into innovation, and his process for discovering high-impact problems.

In addition to Dr. Ricketts' innovation research, he is an award winning scientist and engineer whose innovations have been featured by Popular Science, Smithsonian, NBC News, CBS News, Fox News, ESPN, and many other science news outlets. He is the recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER Award and the U.S. Defense Advanced Projects Agency (DARPA) Young Investigator Award. His work has appeared twice in Nature, as well as numerous IEEE publications, including a feature article in the Proceedings of the IEEE. His scientific research focuses on the physical limitations of circuits and systems and how to address them through new materials, circuits and devices.

As part of his work with TECH SEAS, Dr. Ricketts founded the City Innovators Forum as a place to bring together city leaders from around the world to collaborate and accelerate innovation in their respective cities. Currently, the forum houses hundreds of city leaders passionate about technology and innovation from around the world.