---
id: "pisquared:interview/glennon-britta"
type: "Pi-Squared interview"
title: "Anita McGahan in conversation with Britta Glennon"
url: "https://pisquared.theburnescenter.org/interviews/glennon-britta"
date: "2026-07-06"
people: ["Anita McGahan","Britta Glennon"]
summary: "Britta Glennon is Assistant Professor of Management at the Wharton School and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. She..."
recording: "https://vimeo.com/1213544641"
source: "Pi-Squared (pisquared.theburnescenter.org), The Burnes Center for Social Change"
licence: "none stated"
---

# Anita McGahan in conversation with Britta Glennon

Britta Glennon, Assistant Professor of Management, Wharton School · 6 July 2026

## About the guest

Britta Glennon is Assistant Professor of Management at the Wharton School and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. She received a Ph.D. in Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University, and previously received a M.P.P in Public Policy from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in Economics and East Asian Studies from Cornell University. Her research focuses on immigration and cross-border innovation. This research has been published in leading academic outlets such as the Management Science and Nature; covered in national and international outlets including the New York Times, The Economist, and the Wall Street Journal, as well as podcasts and radio such as NPR’s MarketPlace and the BBC. She has testified as an expert witness in front of the U.S. Senate and her work has been cited in Congressional Testimony.

## Reflections from the interview

**Professor Britta Glennon **is a superstar scholar of innovation who focuses specifically on the role of immigration in the development of important insights.   Among many other accomplishments, she has testified before the US Senate and cited in Congressional testimony.   In this talk with Anita, she describes the massively important and central role of immigrants in driving innovation in the U.S., China, and elsewhere.   The knowledge held in the minds of skilled immigrants is so important that, if companies are restricted in hiring immigrants, they move their hiring into other countries.  The great risk that comes with restrictive immigration policy is that great innovating countries, including especially the US, fall far behind in areas of critical science.

## Related resources

- [Britta’s Wharton website](https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-harder/)
- [Google Scholar on Britta](https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=OCsqa58AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao)
- [Britta’s paper in Nature on lower crediting of women in science](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04966-w)
- [Britta’s paper on offshoring and innovation](https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/full/10.1287/mnsc.2024.04944)
- [Britta’s paper on skilled immigrants and global innovation](https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.38.1.3)
- [Britta’s paper on building a wall around science](https://www.nber.org/papers/w32622)

## Recording

Video: https://vimeo.com/1213544641

## Category

[Where Do We Go From Here?](https://pisquared.theburnescenter.org/category/where-next)

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Original page: https://pisquared.theburnescenter.org/interviews/glennon-britta · Licence: none stated