Dr. Mark Schenkel is Professor & Department Chair of entrepreneurship at Belmont University where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in entrepreneurship. His research and teaching interests focus on the roles that entrepreneurial cognition (e.g., opportunity recognition and assessment) and strategic decision-making play in new venture creation, corporate venturing, and family business settings. His scholarship appears in leading academic journals and has recognized with numerous awards at academic conferences. Belmont recognized his work with the University Scholarship Award in 2018 and selected him as its 2014 nominee for the U.S. Professors of the Year award through the Counsel for Advancement and Support of Education. Schenkel actively consults with local startups in middle Tennessee and maintains professional affiliations with the Academy of Management, International Council for Small Business, and United States Association of Small Business and Entrepreneurship where he served as President in 2018. He was inducted as a Justin G. Longenecker Fellow in 2020 (USASBE) and as a Wilford L. White Fellow (ICSB) in recognition of his research, leadership efforts in entrepreneurship education, and unwavering advocacy for start-up and small business development. He currently serves as co-editor for Journal of Small Business & Enterprise Development and maintains active roles on the editorial review boards of other scholarly journals. Prior to joining Belmont University, Schenkel earned his PhD in Strategy and Entrepreneurship from the University of Cincinnati, his MBA from Northern Kentucky University, and BA in Psychology from the University of Cincinnati. He also served as the Assistant Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship Education and Research while at the University of Cincinnati, building on more than a decade of entrepreneurial experience in a variety of leadership roles closely held family firms where his chief responsibility was the development and implementation of strategies for achieving business growth and profitability objectives.