Ferguson leads the Farley Center, the academic cornerstone of Northwestern University's entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem. As a clinical professor in the McCormick School of Engineering, she teaches a wide range of entrepreneurship and innovation classes. She also is a faculty affiliate at the Trienens Institute for Sustainability and Energy, and serves on the executive advisory board of the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers. Before joining Farley in 2020, Ferguson spent five years at The Garage, Northwestern's student startup incubator. Previously, she held leadership positions at multiple startups, including Legacy.com, where she was part of the founding senior management team. Earlier in her career, Hayes was a project writer at PEOPLE magazine and the Latin America bureau chief for The Times-Picayune. Ferguson has a BA from Vanderbilt University and did graduate work as a Rotary Scholar at the University of Perugia, Italy, and as a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan.