Meredith Meyer Grelli has been appointed Carnegie Mellon University’s inaugural vice provost for entrepreneurship and associate vice president, effective July 1, 2026.
In this new role for the university, Grelli will oversee a comprehensive review of entrepreneurship educational offerings across the university and report jointly to James H. Garrett Jr.(opens in new window), provost and chief academic officer and Theresa Mayer(opens in new window), vice president for research. She will lead the planning and implementation of a scalable, university-wide academic curriculum designed to provide students with pathways to engage in entrepreneurship education and closely collaborate with partners across the university, including the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship, the university’s engine for advancing research-based startups.
Most recently, Grelli served as managing director and interim executive director of the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship(opens in new window), assistant dean of entrepreneurship initiatives in the School of Computer Science(opens in new window), and associate teaching professor of entrepreneurship in the Tepper School of Business(opens in new window). She will continue to serve as an associate teaching professor of entrepreneurship in the Tepper School and as interim executive director of the Swartz Center while the search for the center’s next executive director(opens in new window) is underway.
“Meredith has been a driving force for entrepreneurship since joining Carnegie Mellon in 2020,” said Garrett. “Her leadership has helped expand opportunities for students, strengthen our innovation ecosystem and elevate CMU’s national profile in entrepreneurship. She is exceptionally well positioned to lead this important effort as we continue to build a world-class entrepreneurial education experience for students across the university.”
CMU established the vice provost for entrepreneurship and associate vice president position to advance recommendations from the President’s Advisory Board for Enterprise Creation, Entrepreneurship and Industry Engagement(opens in new window). The advisory board identified entrepreneurial education as a critical component of CMU’s teaching mission and called for a coordinated approach that connects the university’s entrepreneurial resources, programs and expertise into a more integrated ecosystem.
“Meredith’s new role will see her augmenting — and partnering with — the Swartz Center and the Colleges to further enhance CMU’s entrepreneurship ecosystem,” said Mayer. “Accordingly, and as a direct result of the Presidential Advisory Board’s findings, Carnegie Mellon’s talented students and faculty will gain access to more comprehensive, end-to-end offerings that will support them through every step of the startup life cycle.”
Grelli is no stranger to shaping the university’s academic landscape. She has earned the George Leland Bach Excellence in Teaching Award, the Tepper School’s highest teaching honor, and established the Family Business Initiative(opens in new window), which connects and supports family business owners and leaders across the CMU global network. She has also embedded venture and corporate partners and mentors directly into the undergraduate and graduate courses she has designed and taught in venture formation and commercialization.
As co-chair of the Tepper School’s entrepreneurship curriculum review, she convened faculty from the Tepper School, the School of Computer Science, and the College of Engineering to benchmark CMU’s academic programs against peer institutions, and built a roadmap for cross-college coordination, work that lays the foundation for the integrated curriculum she will now lead.
“Students today want to understand not only how to develop groundbreaking ideas, but also how to bring those ideas into the world,” Grelli said. “I’m excited to work with colleagues across CMU to expand entrepreneurship opportunities through initiatives such as intellectual property education, venture capital co-ops and stronger connections between accelerator programs and degree pathways.”
In her roles for the Swartz Center, Grelli has overseen the growth of CMU Startup Week(opens in new window), now the university’s flagship entrepreneurship event as well as the launch of Deep Tech Venture-Ready(opens in new window), a cohort-based program that connects founders with venture capital firms and has soft-circled $250 million in capital for participating companies and raised $4 million in new non-dilutive and friendly-equity funds for research-based startups. In addition, she launched the nation’s first NSF I-Corps cohort in AI and robotics while building the investor and founder infrastructure, including a network of more than 4,500 investors, that connects CMU founders to capital.
Grelli earned a bachelor of science degree from the University of Chicago and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business.
“Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The institution was originally established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical School. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology and began granting four-year degrees.”
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