Dr. Stephanie Raible is an Assistant Professor of Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Delaware’s (UD) Horn Entrepreneurship within the Alfred Lerner College of Business & Economics. She is the co-author of the book, “Social entrepreneurship: A practice-based approach to social innovation,” along with Dr. J. H. Kucher. Recently, Stephanie’s work was recognized with four notable honors, including the Delaware Business Times (DBT) 40 under 40 “DBT40” Award, a University of Delaware Excellence in Teaching Award, the International Council for Small Business (ICSB) Excellence in Social Entrepreneurship Award, and the Deshpande Symposium Excellence in Curriculum Innovation in Entrepreneurship Award.

Welcome!

Stephanie’s work within the university focuses on advancing social entrepreneurship, fostering interdisciplinary connections, and supporting the development and thriving of UD’s faculty and staff. Her major projects for 2024 are the following:

  1. The launch of the new graduate certificate program in Leadership in Social Innovation, in collaboration with UD’s Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy & Administration and Graduate College;

  2. The second running of the social entrepreneurship and disability studies collaborative study abroad for Winter 2025 (applications open now for UD students through mid-April 2024);

  3. The start of her work as an ACHIEVE Faculty Fellow to support faculty in their pathways to promotion;

  4. The continuation of her efforts to support women at UD and beyond through her work as an Executive Board Member in the University’s Women’s Caucus and as a Faculty Fellow in UD’s Women’s Leadership Initiative; and

  5. The exploration of a new community partnership amongst the University of Delaware, University of Minnesota Duluth, and several community partners within each of their regions.

In May 2024, Stephanie is expected to graduate from the Graduate Certificate program in Socially Responsible and Sustainable Apparel Business from the University of Delaware. While she has been an avid thrift shopper for decades and has exclusively bought all of her clothing secondhand since December 2019, she is putting her new education to use by committing more of her time and energy to bolster the secondhand textile ecosystem through her work with ReSpool, an initiative to create a thriving textile recycling ecosystem in the Greater Delaware Valley and North Shore regions.

Outside the university, she is a former National Board Member of the Social Enterprise Alliance (2020-22), Paul R. Lawrence Fellow with the Case Research Foundation (2021-22), and Chair of the Social Entrepreneurship SIG, US Association for Small Business & Entrepreneurship (USASBE) (Chair-Sequence, 2019-2022). She is an emerging scholar in the areas of entrepreneurial identity, women’s entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial transitions, well-being in entrepreneurship, and social entrepreneurship, with active research pipelines in each of these areas.

Since starting her teaching career ten years ago in January 2013, Stephanie has also held teaching and curriculum development positions in social and cultural entrepreneurship and ethical leadership with several universities and non-profit educational programs: the University of Delaware, University of Illinois Champaign–Urbana, University of Minnesota Duluth, Claremont Lincoln University, Chestnut Hill College, Social Entrepreneurship Akademie (Germany), Global Entrepreneurship Summer School (Germany and international), and CRITI.CO by Critical Concrete (Portugal).

Stephanie started her entrepreneurial path in 2012 by starting the International Network for Innovators in Education (INIE) with Marcela Chavez Ocampo, which held conferences throughout Europe through 2016 for those who were connected to an Erasmus+ mobility scheme. In 2013-17, she led two European Commission-supported entrepreneurship incubator programs (REALISE IT and Erasmus+ Students and Alumni Alliance-ESAA) with five extended weekend, in-person launch events and synchronous and asynchronous training programs, check-ins, and coaching sessions.

Before her work in entrepreneurship topics, Stephanie also worked for ten years across a variety of professional roles, many of which touched upon adult education, learning, and international education topic areas. This initial work informs how she shows up as an educator and the opportunities she has created for her students to learn, study, and live abroad.

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Always learning and trying to expand my horizons—like this documented sequence of my first time fishing and holding a fish from this past summer.

Always learning and trying to expand my horizons—like this documented sequence of my first time fishing and holding a fish from this past summer.

 

Impact

It is my goal to embody a lifelong learning orientation and develop and grow through my own experiences, in order to then share that learning with others.

 

11

Years of Teaching & Curriculum Development

Taught with seven universities and colleges, two international organizations., and two incubator programs.

19

Years of work in higher education, nonprofits, and foundations

Worked across a variety of professional roles in three countries: the U.S., Germany, and England.

20,000+

Students taught in in-person, online, and hybrid courses

Reaching about 100 students each semester and thousands more via two MOOCs and one specialist professional course.

 
 
 

Contact Me

Interested in learning more about my work, collaborating, or just connecting?