Sean Safford was previously an Assistant Professor of Organizations and Strategy at the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business, a Lecturer at the London School of Economics and Political Science and a Visiting Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School. His research focuses on social, economic and technological change, particularly in mature industrial economies, as well as on historical social network analysis. He was a lead researcher with the MIT Local Innovation Systems Project which examined the role of universities in economic development in the US and several countries around the world. In 2004, he received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management. His dissertation, “Why the Garden Club Couldn’t Save Youngstown: Social Capital and the Transformation of the Rust Belt” was published by Harvard University Press in 2009.
