Nova Bradford

Nova Bradford is a PhD candidate studying management and organizations at Stanford’s Department of Health Policy, where she is a Knight-Hennessey Scholar (Stanford’s equivalent of Rhodes). She studies how leaders and organizations respond to environments that are constrained, uncertain, or in flux. Her dissertation—advised by Sara Singer, Hayagreeva Rao, and Melissa Valentine—examines innovation, strategic decision-making, and artificial intelligence using ethnographic and computational methods. Bradford received the “Outstanding Paper Based on a Dissertation” award from the Academy of Management’s Health Care Management division. During her PhD, she taught courses in the Graduate School of Business and Department of Health Policy. Outside of her PhD, she is a stand-up comedian, playwright, and theater director, with work that has been featured in Rolling Stone, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and more.