At the Alvarez-Powell Lab for Entrepreneurship Policy Prototyping (LEPP), we believe that entrepreneurship enriches communities, and smart policy can help it thrive.
Whether you're a researcher studying policies and interventions, a community leader seeking to support local startups or a policymaker crafting initiatives to spark innovation, we’re here to help make those efforts more effective.
Why LEPP?
The Alvarez-Powell Lab brings together researchers, entrepreneurs and policymakers to test, improve and design entrepreneurship policies that actually work for the people they’re meant to serve.
We run real-world experiments to answer questions like:
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Do entrepreneurship policies work in the communities they're meant to support?
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What mechanisms are driving those policies and how can we test them?
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How can we make entrepreneurship more accessible and effective?
What We Do
We design and test real-world policy solutions to support entrepreneurs, especially in underserved or overlooked regions. Our work includes:
- Testing the efficacy of policies designed to increase entrepreneurship in targeted communities
- Testing the mechanisms underlying those policies
- Uncovering hidden barriers to the adoption, implementation and use of those policies
For opportunities to collaborate, or to ask any questions, please email either alexander.lewis@utsa.edu or ohmaddi@ccny.cuny.edu.
Vision
A world where community empowers entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurship empowers communities.
Mission
To improve the efficiency with which available resources are accessed and used by entrepreneurs.
Commuter Zone Entrepreneurial Expert Survey
An adaptation of Global Entrepreneurship Monitor’s National Expert Survey, the CZEES is an ongoing effort to build a panel dataset of the entrepreneurial enablers of the 741 U.S. commuting zones, as evaluated by local entrepreneurship experts from each zone.
FundMatch and GeoSplore
A platform that allows entrepreneurs to explore proprietary and public data about regional funding opportunities, entrepreneurial conditions, and economic and consumer environments.
Localized AI Entrepreneur Assistant
A GPT trained on local economic, business, and cultural conditions intended to enable entrepreneurship on the part of small business owners in emerging markets.
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Resources for Entrepreneurs, Researchers & Policymakers
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Open-access research repository with real-world entrepreneurship data
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A growing database of experiments, tools and insights for researchers and policymakers
About Us
Founded by Dr. Ouafaa Hmaddi (City College of New York) and Dr. Alexander Lewis (The University of Texas at San Antonio), LEPP is an interdisciplinary research lab driven by a simple idea: entrepreneurship policy should be tested, not assumed.
We work alongside a growing network of faculty, students, and community partners across the country.
Lab Faculty
- Dr. Ouafaa Hmaddi
City College of New York - Dr. Alexander Lewis
The University of Texas at San Antonio
Affiliated Faculty
- Dr. Diana Hechavarria
Babson College - Dr. Andréa Hodge
University of Alabama - Dr. Yolanda Christophe
University of Notre Dame - Dr. Steven Hyde
Boise State University - Dr. Christopher Law
Texas A&M University - Dr. Rachael Xiong
Kansas State University
Student Researchers
- La Mia Pruitt
The University of Texas at San Antonio - Breidy Encarnacion Santiago
CUNY
