Dr Angela Martinez Dy

  • Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship

Angela is an internationally recognised thought leader in digital entrepreneurship and intersectional critical realist feminism. An experienced educator, researcher, social entrepreneur, mentor, public speaker, scholar-activist, and digital creative, she has a history of creating impact through actionable research insights and building community-based organisations. Her expertise has driven University strategy in equity, diversity and inclusion and measurably advanced institutional practice.

Profile

Dr Angela Martinez Dy is Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship. Her interest in entrepreneurship stems from her experience of building grassroots arts organisations in her hometown of Seattle, USA, where she was co-founder and Program Director (2002-2009) for Youth Speaks Seattle, the area's leading youth creative writing and performing arts education organisation.

Joining Loughborough University London upon its opening in 2015, Angela’s contributions were crucial to the successful launch of the satellite campus. She now teaches on entrepreneurship modules, supervises research students, and serves as Academic Integrity Lead for the London campus, as well as Equality Officer and caseworker for Loughborough University UCU Committee. She has previously worked at the University of Nottingham and King’s College London, and has delivered keynotes, seminars, and panels at universities throughout the UK and Europe.

Her research specialisms and interests span digital entrepreneurship and self-employment, intersectional feminism, feminist science and technology studies, and critical realist philosophy. She takes a sociological and technofeminist perspective to understand the ways that society and technology are co-created and shape the world of work.

Academic background

Angela completed her BA degree (2005) at the University of Washington, where she double majored in Mathematics and English. She achieved her MSc (Dist) Entrepreneurship (2010) and PhD Business and Management (2015) at the Haydn Green Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Nottingham University Business School. 

Her PhD research, supervised by Dr Lee Martin and Professor Susan Marlow, was funded by the Nottingham University Business School Scholarship and the Vice-Chancellor’s Scholarship for International Research Excellence. An intersectional feminist, critical realist analysis of women’s digital enterprise in the UK, it was examined by gender and entrepreneurship experts Professor Maura McAdam and Dr Janine Swail. 

A Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Angela has supervised two doctoral completions. She is continually engaged in professional development, especially in the areas of inclusive and decolonial pedagogy.

Research

Angela’s research interests span the areas of digital entrepreneurial activity, intersectional feminism, feminist science and technology studies, critical entrepreneurship studies and critical realist philosophy. She is establishing a distinctive, versatile, and highly visible transdisciplinary research agenda exploring the nexus of entrepreneurship, technology, and social inequalities. 

This innovative work has prompted a step-change in the field of feminist entrepreneurship studies and is pushing the boundaries of management and organisation scholarship. Her theoretical and empirical publications have examined how such topics as entrepreneurial opportunities, resources, agency, and labour market activity are affected by intersectionality, systems of artificial intelligence, racial capitalism, and exoimperialism.

From 2018-2020, she led a research team in evaluating an entrepreneurial initiative aiming to diversify the London tech and start-up ecosystem, and published a multimedia policy brief and recommendations now in use by multiple organisations.

Angela is an Editorial Review Board Member for the following journals: Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Human Relations, Organisation, International Small Business Journal, International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship, and Journal of Critical Realism. She regularly reviews for these and other respected academic outlets.

She has been the recipient of multiple best paper awards at academic conferences and co-organised many conferences, streams, workshops, and special issues in her areas of interest.

Interests and activities

Alongside her distinctive research agenda, Angela has initiated a range of projects and initiatives intended to increase possibilities for anti-racist and intersectional feminist education within and beyond UK academia. This includes partnering with immersive change agency Words of Colour, co-founding scholar-activist collectives including Building the Anti-Racist Classroom and the Decolonizing Alliance, launching the Loughborough University Freedom School and Race Equity Town Hall, and developing a track record of attracting funding for these important pedagogical innovations.

Angela’s academic expertise in intersectionality and experience in creative, anti-racist scholar-activism was the foundation for a period of organic strategic leadership that measurably advanced Loughborough University’s policy and practice in equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI). Between 2019-2023, she was appointed Chair of the Race Equality Charter Data and Surveys Working Group, Strategic Architect of the LU Race Equity Strategy, Network Lead of the REACH Staff Network, and EDI Forum Proposer and Co-Chair. 

In these roles, she drove the development of new university governance structures, and designed institution-wide policies in EDI. In both 2021 and 2022, she was voted Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Champion at the Loughborough University Academic Awards and named an Inspirational Woman by the MAIA Network. Having delivered organisational development sessions across the University, Angela now advises the University’s EDI team on race equity strategy and joined the Loughborough University UCU Committee as Equality Officer in 2024.

Past internal roles include Loughborough London UCU Representative, Ethics Representative, Creative Assessment Working Group Proposer and Chair, and University Senate member. Externally, she has been an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Expert Advisor for Innovate UK, Intersectionality Champion and Vice Chair (Marketing & Communications) for the Gender and Enterprise Network of the Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship. She now serves on the editorial review boards of some of her field’s top journals.