Bapna, Sofia
Sofia Bapna is Associate Professor at the Leavey School of Business. Her research interests lie in the areas of gender gaps, entrepreneurship in the digital economy, and AI in education.
Dr. Bapna’s work is inherently multidisciplinary in nature. It integrates perspectives from and contributes to research across information systems, entrepreneurship, and labor markets. Additionally, it employs randomized field experiments and sophisticated econometric methods with a strong focus on causal inference. She complements these approaches with surveys to gain insights into the underlying mechanisms at work.
A hallmark of Dr. Bapna’s research is that it engages with industry partners. It includes partnerships with a national funding agency that promotes innovation in Austria, an equity crowdfunding platform, a publicly traded staffing company in India, and an organization that hosts events that service the data science and technology community. These collaborations underscore the business relevance of her research.
Dr. Bapna’s work has been published in Management Science, MIS Quarterly and Information Systems Research, and is funded by the National Science Foundation, and the Kauffman Foundation. She is a recipient of the INFORMS Information Systems Society’s Sandra A. Slaughter Early Career Award and Gordon B. Davis Young Scholar Awards, and the Association for Information Systems’ Early Career Award.
Dr. Bapna serves on the Faculty Advisory board for the Ciocca Center, supporting its mission to instill an entrepreneurial mindset across the Santa Clara University community and beyond.