In a letter to the Wharton School community last week, Dean Thomas Robertson announced the appointment of a new vice dean for innovation, a position newly created to help ensure that the very best ideas for improving Wharton’s research and teaching are identified and implemented.

Karl Ulrich, a Wharton professor of entrepreneurship and e-commerce, will assume the new role, Robertson announced. “As vice dean, Karl will be a steward for innovation opportunities, providing a vital channel to the Dean’s Office for ideas originating from across all divisions of the school,” he wrote. He added that implementing just two or three additional ideas each year could be transformational for the school. 

Ulrich, who joined the Wharton faculty in 1993, has since helped redesign the school’s programming and curricula. He also co-founded the Weiss Tech House and the Integrated Product Design Program, institutions focused on fostering innovation.

The holder of more than 20 patents, Ulrich also co-authored a textbook on product design used by a quarter of a million students worldwide. His most recent book, co-authored with Christian Terwiesch, is Innovation Tournaments: Creating and Selecting Exceptional Opportunities, which will strongly inform the work he does as vice dean of innovation, Robertson wrote.

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