The Team

Anne-Laure Fayard

Chaired Professor

Chaired Professor in Social Innovation at Nova School of Business and Economics (Nova SBE). She is the founder and coordinator of the Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability (DESIS) Lab @Nova SBE. She is also a visiting research faculty at NYU. Prior to joining Nova SBE, she was faculty at New York University as well as INSEAD. She also held visiting positions at Imperial College Business School, London School of Economics and Ecole des Mines.

Her recent research focuses on cross-sector collaboration and open innovation for social innovation and the future of work. She is passionate about human-centered design that she researches, teaches and practices. At NYU, she was the faculty founder for the Design Lab @NYU MakerSpace and for the Design of America of NYU studio.

Her work has been published in several leading academic journals such as Administrative Science Quarterly , Organization Science and Harvard Business Review. Her work has also been highlighted in major newspapers such as  New York Times, Financial Times and The Economist. Her book with Anca Metiu, The Power of Writing in Organizations, was published by Routledge in August 2012, and she co-edited The Routledge Companion to Anthropology and Business (2020) with Raza Mir.

She holds an MA and an M.Phil. in Philosophy from Paris – La Sorbonne, an M.Phil. in Cognitive Science from Ecole Polytechnique (Paris) and a Ph.D. in Cognitive Science from the Ecole des Hautes-Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris).

Paolo Leone

Assistant Professor

Paolo is an Assistant Professor of Social Innovation at Nova SBE. His research focuses on the organizational dynamics that drive social innovation processes. Particularly, he explores how open forms of organizing can generate system-changing innovations in scientific and knowledge-intensive collaborations. His research is situated at the nexus of organization theory and innovation studies, and has appeared in journals such as Academy of Management Review and Research Policy. Paolo teaches innovation courses at the master level and philosophy of science at the PhD level. He received a PhD in Management from McGill University, an MPhil in Innovation, Strategy and Organization from the University of Cambridge, and a JD from Università Roma Tre.

Samantha Ortiz Casillas

Assistant Professor

Samantha is an organizational ethnographer interested in understanding how people work and organize towards social change in complex and often hostile environments. She has studied how workers- in public bureaucracies, political collective action, or grassroots organizing – experience challenges in their everyday efforts and how, in response to these challenges, they develop practices, processes, and relationships that shape organizational resilience and goals. She has conducted studies on migration, social policy, public administration, regulation, grassroots organizing, and strike action. Beyond academia, she works with government organizations, civil society, activists, and public servants to find better ways of organizing. She also co-organizes the Ethnography Atelier, a collaborative space that offers seminars, workshops, and podcasts on ethnography and other qualitative methods to a worldwide audience. Samantha has a PhD in Management (Emlyon Business School), a Masters in Public Policy and Public Administration (Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas) and a Bachelors in International Relations (La Trobe University).

Natalia da Luz

Project Manager

Natalia da Luz is the Project Manager for the ERA Chair in Social Innovation. She is a multimedia journalist who brings together experience in communications and research. She holds a post-graduate degree in the History and Culture of Afrodescendant People (PUC-Rio), with field research in Kenya, and is currently a PhD candidate in African Studies at ISCTE-IUL. Her journalistic career spans 14 African countries, where she has reported on issues related to human rights and social development. For more than a decade, Natalia has worked as a Communications Specialist with UN agencies such as UNDP, FAO, UNIC, and UNFPA in countries including Brazil, Eritrea, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau. She is also the founder of Por Dentro da África, an award-winning platform dedicated to African affairs, recognized with the 2015 Media Achievement Prize in Ghana.

Beatriz Bento

DESIS Lab Fellow | Project Lead for the Community Garden

Beatriz holds a Bachelor’s degree from the Faculdade de Belas Artes of Universidade de Lisboa (FBAUL) and a Master’s degree in Museology and Museography. She furthered her expertise with a postgraduate degree in Art Markets from ISCTE.
With a dynamic career, Beatriz after working at IADE in the international mobility area and being part of the exhibition room at MAAT, she joined Nova SBE as part of the Faculty Office team.
Previously, she led community-focused artistic education projects during her 5 years at FBAUL. Currently, Beatriz shares her insights also as a teaching assistant for Master’s courses ‘Impact Makers’, ‘Design Thinking for Social Innovation’ and ’Leading Impact Enterprises in International Development’.

Rita Nascimento

Project Manager (on leave from October 2025)

Rita is the Project Manager for the ERA Chair in Social Innovation and a Ph.D. in Management candidate at Nova SBE. In her research, she focuses on hybrid organizations in different contexts. Rita is also interested in education, sustainability (circular economy), cross-sectoral collaboration, (open) social innovation and action-research philosophy. Prior to joining Nova SBE, she worked with NGOs and startups in business Development, project management and digital marketing. And in 2020, she launched Treethis, a family-run social business.

Meena Kadri

Communications Consultant

Meena explores the intersection of innovation and social change – via her consultancy Random Specific and significantly through her eight years of work with global innovation consultancy and pioneer of human-centred design: IDEO. She spent a decade as a graphic designer / creative director which overlapped with another as an academic in design. These days she’s most often drawn to projects amplifying equity, inclusion and sustainability – contributing to research, communications, community engagement and strategy. Meena lives at the edge of paradise in New Zealand, though continues to consult globally alongside engaging locallyss.

João Martins

Community Garden Consultant

João Martins is an architect and urban planner whose work bridges regenerative agriculture, architecture, and community activation. He is the co-founder and Vice-President of LocalsApproach, where he develops proximity urbanism, creative participation, and urban regeneration initiatives. With a background in permaculture and regenerative landscape design, João created and managed the regenerative farm Quinta do Largo and later founded ão.verde, a project focused on edible landscapes and regenerative ecosystems. He collaborates with NOVA SBE as an external consultant for the campus Community Garden and coordinates the caregivers group for the Jardins do Bombarda. His architectural projects integrate food landscapes and regenerative principles into their core design.

Yulia Vachevskikh

PhD Student

Yulia is a Ph.D Candidate in Management at Nova SBE, with Anne-Laure Fayard as main advisor. Her research interests are social innovation, cross-sector collaboration and system change. Before she was an intern at Yunus Centre and MAZE Impact.