shukla@chapman.eduBeckman Hall 307 CDr. Shukla serves Chapman University as the inaugural Shah Family Endowed Chair in Innovativeness. The objective of this position is to prepare the next generation of high-thinking business leaders in low-tech industries nationally. Dr. Shukla teaches a Creativity and Innovation Corporate Entrepreneurship course to prepare students nationally via dissemination of research and teaching findings how to increase their creativity and high-tech thinking. As chair, he oversees an Innovative High-Tech Thinkers speaker series. Dr. Shukla also is the director of the annual awards program: The Shah Awards: Recognizing Leaders Applying High-Tech Thinking to Low-Tech Industries. Dr. Pradip K. Shukla previously served as vice-chancellor for entrepreneurship at Chapman University.   

Dr. Shukla has consulted with entrepreneurial firms at all stages— business plan, inception, growth, succession planning, going public, and liquidation.

Dr. Shukla has served on the boards of directors for the Orange County Forum, Orange County Innovation, the Harvard Business School Alumni of OC Entrepreneurship Conference, the City of Orange Economic Development Committee, Orange Chamber of Commerce, the Friends of the Villa Park Library and the Orange County Mental Health Association. Dr. Shukla is currently an independent director for PopWhite (with industry-leading B2B and B2C products for teeth whitening). He served on the advisory board of StudentBusinesses.com, a social network for entrepreneurship students and investors co-founded by Harvard University Alumnus Vivek Ramaswamy (a billionaire in 2023 and Republican party candidate in 2023 for United States President). Dr. Shukla served on the advisory board of Advanced Predictive Analytics, Inc., which was a big data analytics firm and served on the board with Dr. Arthur Laffer who is considered one of the top economists globally. Dr. Shukla was selected in 2019 to receive a Marquis Who’s Who in America Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2023 Dr. Shukla was nominated for an Innovator of the Year Award from the Orange County Business Journal.

Dr. Shukla received a master of science degree from the University of Southern California and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles. He has a total of seven college degrees. He joined Chapman University in 1985 as an associate professor of management. Dr. Shukla has previously worked in faculty and administrative positions at California State University campuses, Brandman University/University of Massachusetts Global, USC, and at California community colleges. He has edited two published textbooks and has presented/published several papers. His research focuses upon the application of managerial and strategic decision-making tools and he has served as a Sam Walton SIFE Fellow. In 2007, Dr. Shukla received the Chapman University Alumni Top Faculty Award; only one award given in the entire year campuswide to the one faculty member with most votes selected by the alumni association. In 2024, Dr. Shukla received the Chapman University Faculty Martin Luther King Junior Faculty Award for Community Service to the campus.

Dr. Shukla is currently one of the most senior faculty members at Chapman University and has worked with the highest administrators at Chapman University. As Dr. Shukla teaches about efficiency and increasing professional and personal productivity, he likes to apply these course concepts personally to demonstrate to students the potential to increase one’s capacity.  Given his teaching overloads during Interterm, summer sessions, larger enrollment sections, and prior off-campus academic center sections, he is setting a record in 2024/2025: the most number of Chapman students taught by any faculty member in the 164 year history of Chapman University. 

He is a co-founder of the APIDA Faculty and Staff Forum at Chapman University and a founding advisory board member of the Asian Pacific Institute at Chapman University. He was invited to serve as the keynote speaker for the APIDA Graduation Ceremony in 2023. He has served in leadership roles in the Southern California Indian community with groups such as India@75 Executive Committee that put on major ticketed events at the Cerritos Performing Arts Center and IASH- Indo American Senior Heritage Group. In 2024, he received recognition and congratulations from the U.S. Ambassador to India for his efforts in engaging Chapman University more with the Asian Indian community.

In 2009 and 2010, Dr. Shukla was appointed to the position of vice chancellor for entrepreneurship at Chapman University; the objective of this position was to create entrepreneurial opportunities and values across the entire campus. From 2002 to 2010, he served as director of the Leatherby Center for Entrepreneurship and Business Ethics within the Argyros School of Business and Economics. He was  previously in charge of the entrepreneurship programs at Brandman University/University of Massachusetts Global, CSU Long Beach and CSU Northridge. He has served as the faculty advisor to Alpha Kappa Psi Business Fraternity (and served as faculty advisor from founding for 15 years), Students in Free Enterprise, Collegiate Entrepreneurs’ Organization, South Asian Students Association, and the International Student Association at Chapman University. With overload teaching during fall and spring semesters along with overload teaching during summer sessions/interterms, Dr. Shukla has taught as a professor for over 60 full-time-equivalent years. He mentored two students who won the highest Chapman University Student Award—the Chapman University Cheverton Trophy.

Dr. Shukla has helped Chapman University students to win individual and team regional, national and global awards/finalist rankings in entrepreneurship and business plan contests. The entrepreneurship program at Chapman University in 2008 was ranked #6 among undergraduate programs nationally by The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine out of 2,300 programs surveyed. In 2008, Chapman University received the 1st Place National Innovative Pedagogy Award from the United States Association of Small Business and Entrepreneurship. In 2009, Chapman University finished 2nd Place for the Model MBA Program in Entrepreneurship nationally as evaluated by USASBE.

Dr. Shukla received the 1st Place Best Faculty Advisor Award from Collegiate Entrepreneurs’ Organization in 2006 out of all global chapters. In 2008, he was selected to receive an Excellence in Entrepreneurship Education Teaching Award from the ACTON Foundation for Entrepreneurship Excellence to recognize the best entrepreneurship instructors nationally. He has served as a curriculum study guide developer and test writer for the “Economics and Entrepreneurship” section of the United States Academic Decathlon. Dr. Shukla served as a business reviewer for the Advanced Technology Program of the United States Department of Commerce where he reviewed business plans for federal funding support.pr@chapman.edushukla@chapman.edu(714) 997-6817