Dr. I. Elaine Allen is the Research Director of the Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship and an Associate Professor of Statistics and Entrepreneurship. She is also the Research Director for the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor project and heads the US team.  She is also Co-Director of the Babson Survey Research Group (BSRG).

Prior to joining Babson, she held executive positions in the healthcare and biotechnology industry, including at Centocor, ARIAD and MetaWorks, Inc. She also held faculty appointments at the University of Pennsylvania and at Rutgers University.  Her entrepreneurial activities include starting StatSystems, a medical device company; ARIAD Pharmaceuticals, a publicly held biotechnology company; and Pondview Associates, a high tech consulting firm. She continues to consult in the entrepreneurship, finance, pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries and has served on several NIH panels on best practices in statistics and evidence-based research.  Through BSRG, Dr. Allen has received extensive grant support and co-authors the Annual Sloan Report on Online-Education in the United States, the GEM Report on Women and Entrepreneurship, and the US GEM report on entrepreneurship.

Dr. Allen's educational background includes a B.A. from Skidmore College, an M.A. from University of Evansville and a Ph.D. from Cornell University. She is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and of the American Society for Quality. She has published widely in statistical, clinical, and managed care journals on statistical issues in meta-analysis, data mining, clinical and biological research methodology and statistical computing.  Areas of expertise include biostatistics, data mining, survey methodology, entrepreneurship and online education.