Laura Kornish
Associate Dean of Undergraduate Programs • Professor of Marketing
Undergraduate Programs • Marketing

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Biography

Laura J. Kornish is the associate dean of undergraduate programs and a professor of marketing at the Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado Boulder.

Professor Kornish received her undergraduate degree in Applied Math at Harvard University. After college, she worked at Cambridge Technology Partners. She then earned her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees at Stanford University, and subsequently joined the faculty at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. She joined the Marketing Division at Leeds in 2005 and Undergraduate Programs at Leeds in 2021.

Professor Kornish’s research focuses on the fuzzy front end of innovation. The front end is “fuzzy” because it is unstructured, with the problem scope in flux and dozens or even hundreds of raw ideas in the running. Her research looks at how to generate ideas and select the best ones, and how well people do that.

She previously served as an associate editor for Management Science and is currently on the editorial board of Marketing Science.

At Leeds, she has taught in the undergraduate, MS, and MBA programs.

Most recently, she taught BASE: the Business core Applied Semester Experience. BASE is a required sophomore class, serving as a capstone to the business core. Students work on business problems that span marketing, accounting, finance, operations, and more. The course is a chance for students to integrate and apply what they learned in the core classes. No other business school has an experience like BASE.

She also developed the digital marketing curriculum at Leeds and collaborated with the Department of Mathematics to custom design the math requirement for Leeds students.

She has served as Chair of the Marketing Division and the Undergraduate Curriculum and Policy Committee for Leeds. She is now the Associate Dean of Undergraduate Programs and oversees the Dean’s Fellows and the Dean’s Student Cabinet.

Current Research

  • Idea generation and selection in the fuzzy front end of innovation

Honors

  • MBA Teaching Excellence Award, Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado, 2015

  • Joseph L. Frascona Teaching Excellence Award, Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado, 2014

  • William H. Baughn Faculty Service Award, 2013  

  • NSF Graduate Fellowship 1993 - 1996

  • Phi Beta Kappa 1990