Dr. Amanda Thompson is the CEO of Explore Interactive, a game platform that teaches STEM concepts through fun and engaging augmented reality adventures. As an entrepreneur, she has overseen and managed projects with millions of dollars in funding and grant awards in bio tech and ed tech companies since earning her MBA and PhD in finance from Purdue University. Amanda is also involved directly in both the entrepreneurial and educational communities.  

As an entrepreneur in residence at the Foundry, her expertise is in identifying, communicating and estimating the value proposition of the business idea from a financial and strategic perspective, as well as building an operational plan, financial model and valuation for the new start-up. She has twice attended the NSF i-Corps program as a strategic mentor.

As a professor, her academic experience spans from venture capital to corporate valuation and from financial policy to capital budgeting in faculty, alumni, undergraduate, MBA, online and executive courses at Purdue and UNC-Chapel Hill.

 Education: B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Texas A&M – College Station (2003) MBA and M.S./Ph.D. in Finance from Purdue University (2005, 2010)