David Foord

Dr. Foord is an associate professor at the University of New Brunswick. He teaches innovation and entrepreneurship in the Faculty of Management BBA and MBA programs, as well as a reading course on sociotechnical transitions for thesis and dissertation students. He previously taught in St. Thomas University’s Science and Technology Studies Programme (2010-2016) and the UNB Faculty of Engineering’s Technology Management and Entrepreneurship Program (2017-2019). In 2023 he was appointed the Wilson-McKenna Fellow in Digital Sustainability.

He is the recipient of the UNB Student Union Red Award for Teaching Excellence (2021), UNB Teaching Scholar Award (2022), UNB Merit Award (2022), Faculty of Management Excellence in Research Award, 2016-2022 (2023) and MBA Graduate Student Society Professor Recognition Award (2024).

He has authored histories of the upper limb powered prosthetics industry, US carbon black industry, Canadian electric utility industry and science, technology and innovation policy. He has published studies of science, technology and innovation in the electric power, biomedical engineering and carbon licensing industries.

He is currently supervising or co-supervising the research of one post-doctoral fellow, six doctoral students, and one MBA thesis student. Postdoctoral fellows and students who wish to pursue studies on the aforementioned research topics may express interest by sending by email an introductory letter, writing sample and academic transcripts.

Dr. Foord’s professional service work has included university and private sector management, board and advisory board positions. He serves on a number of UNB Faculty of Management and Faculty of Interdisciplinary Studies committees. He was a board member of Q1 Labs and currently serves on the board of Inversa Systems. He is an advisory board member of the Emera and NB Power Research Centre and the Energy Modelling Hub.

Dr. Foord has a doctorate in interdisciplinary studies from the University of New Brunswick, a Bachelor of Laws from Dalhousie University and a Bachelor of Arts in history from Campion College at the University of Regina.

Peer reviewed publications

Foord, David. “Leisure Jobs: Recreating family and social life in utility marketing in Canada, 1920-1970.” Business History Review (2024). Forthcoming.

Foord, David. “Industrial Transitions in the Black: US government-business relations in the mobilization of carbon during World War II.” Enterprise & Society 24, no. 2 (2023): 395-424.

Foord, David. “The net-negative ethic: rationalisation and national carbon footprint programs.” In Sustainability Transformations, Social Transitions and Environmental Accountabilities, pp. 39-77. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2023.

Foord, David, Gregory Kealey, H and John McLaughlin. Beyond the Family Compact: Science, technology and innovation policy in New Brunswick. In Castle, David and Phillips, Peter Science and Innovation Policy in the Provinces. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2022.

Foord David. “Fitting places in knowledge translation: Biomedical innovation in healthcare practice.” Health Policy 125 no. 10 (2021): 1330-1339.

Tantawy, Maha, Kendall Herbert, Jeffrey J. McNally, Thomas Mengel, Panagiotis Piperopoulos, and David Foord. "Bringing creativity back to entrepreneurship education: Creative self-efficacy, creative process engagement, and entrepreneurial intentions.” Journal of Business Venturing Insights 15 (2021): e00239.

Foord, David. "Changes in technologies and meanings of upper limb prosthetics: Part i-from ancient egypt to early modern europe." In MEC20 Symposium. 2020.

Foord, David JA, and Peter J. Kyberd. “Embedded research in rehabilitation engineering.” Prometheus (2020).

Foord, David, and John D. McLaughlin. “Embedded research in energy innovation: An examination of cases and theories of knowledge creation for power generation and lighting technologies.” Energy Research & Social Science 56 (2019): 101211.