Steve Trost serves as the Institute's Director and as Adjunct Professor within the School of Entrepreneurship, where he teaches Entrepreneurship & Society EEE-2083 and Entrepreneurial Value Creation in Society EEE-3031.  Having owned and operated a research and development business for more than 17 years, he is an accomplished inventor, with 13 granted U.S. patents and multiple international patents.  Dr. Trost, a first-generation college student, received his bachelor of science degree in civil engineering from MIT (1991), master's in civil engineering from OSU (1996) and PhD's in civil engineering (1998) and entrepreneurship (2019) from OSU.