Dr. Marlene Orozco

Research Fellow 
Texas State University

Marlene Orozco's deep subject-matter expertise includes a decade of research experience on reducing systems-level bias facing people of color, women, and other historically underrepresented groups in entrepreneurship, finance, and the digital economy. As a mixed methods researcher by training, Dr. Orozco has qualitative, in-depth research experience coupled with expertise in big data, multivariate analysis, and large-scale survey design.

Dr. Orozco has co-authored an academic volume, Advancing U.S. Latino Entrepreneurship (Purdue University Press, 2020), written academic publications in peer-reviewed journals like Small Business Economics, Social Science Quarterly, and Qualitative Sociology, and authored several industry reports and research briefs. A well-recognized scholar, Dr. Orozco’s research has been featured in over 100 media outlets (Bloomberg, Forbes, MarketWatch, etc.) and she has been named Silicon Valley Business Journal’s “40 Under 40: Top Young Professionals.”

In 2019, Dr. Orozco founded Stratified Insights, LLC, a research consulting firm that provides academic grade research solutions to organizations from research planning and design, data collection and analysis, to reports and presentations, tailor-made for key stakeholders. Dr. Orozco formerly served as Associate Director on entrepreneurship research initiatives at Stanford Graduate School of Business and led Global Policy Research at Meta.

Dr. Orozco received a BA degree in sociology with honors from Stanford University, a Master’s degree in education policy and management from Harvard University, and a PhD degree in sociology with a focus in entrepreneurship from Stanford University.