Brett Anitra Gilbert COLLEGE STATION- Brett Anitra Gilbert, assistant professor of Management at Texas A&M University’s Mays Business School, has been chosen as one of five recipients of the annual Kauffman Junior Faculty Fellowship in Entrepreneurship Research. The fellowship will provide Texas A&M with a grant of $50,000 over two years to support Gilbert’s research activities. This prestigious award recognizes tenured or tenure-track junior faculty members at accredited U.S. universities who are beginning to establish a record of scholarship and exhibit the potential to make significant contributions to the body of research in the field of entrepreneurship.
Gilbert’s research focuses on the effect of clustering on innovation. Her research asks whether having a cluster of related business in the same region (e.g. Silicon Valley) advances or hinders innovation. With this new source of funding, Gilbert will examine how clustering impacts new ventures in the area of disruptive technology  (innovations that will eventually replace an older technology completely).
Specifically, she plans to look at innovations in hydrogen and fuel cell technologies. “What I’m trying to understand is whether or not clustering helps to encourage or discourage innovation,” said Gilbert. “There’s a lot of literature that shows clusters are very conducive to innovation activity, but then there’s also literature which suggests that clusters tend to create group think and can be discouraging of new thought…This could actually prohibit any new technological paradigms from being created within a cluster.” The Kauffman funds will accelerate her research as she compares regions where hydrogen and fuel cells are and are not being developed and analyzes the differences between the two types of regions.
She holds a PhD in entrepreneurship from Indiana University. Before joining the faculty at Texas A&M in 2007, she taught entrepreneurship courses at Georgia State University for three years.