Defining the Discipline. Leading the Industry.
The Center for the Creator Economy launched at Syracuse University in November 2025 as the first academic center of its kind in the nation. Led jointly by the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, the Center opened its physical home in the Newhouse School in 2025. The Center’s Creator Economy minor — open to undergraduates across every school and college at Syracuse — launches during the fall 2026 semester. Nearly 50 million people worldwide now work as full- or part-time creators, in a sector Goldman Sachs Research projects could be worth $480 billion by 2027. No institution has yet built the infrastructure that industry needs. Syracuse University has.
Meet the Team
Ryan Schram, Executive Director
Ryan Schram is the Executive Director of the Center for the Creator Economy. A veteran industry leader and strategic advisor at the intersection of content, commerce and creativity, Schram leads the Center’s growth as it expands its academic programs, research initiatives, and industry partnerships — guiding a first-of-its-kind academic center that aligns Syracuse’s strengths in entrepreneurship, media, communications, athletics, and digital infrastructure.
Schram brings more than 25 years of executive leadership across public and private companies. He spent 13 years at IZEA, a global leader in professional services, technology and talent representation, including 12 years as president and COO, before joining the boutique advisory firm Particle Wave as managing partner, where he counsels leading companies on navigating the rapidly evolving creator economy. Before IZEA, he was group vice president at Merkle and held roles of increasing responsibility at Westwood One and iHeartMedia. He was recognized as a Top 10 Global Chief Operating Officer at the 2023 OnCon Icon Awards and as a Top 101 COO by Boardroom Media in 2022.
Carrie Welch, Launch Director
Carrie Welch has spent more than 20 years building brands and telling stories at the highest levels of public relations and content — experience she now brings to student engagement and day-to-day operations of the Center. She began her career at the Food Network in New York City, where she rose to Vice President of Public Relations over a 10-year tenure, working directly with the network’s celebrity chefs and leading the PR campaigns behind every series launch, network initiative, and philanthropic platform the network put into the world. That grounding in high-volume, high-visibility content and talent-facing PR shaped the practitioner’s eye she brings to to the Center and its growth.
Prior to Syracuse, Welch and her wife built and ran Little Green Pickle, a leading food PR agency, and the Feast Portland food and drink festival in Portland, Oregon, for nine years — running both the communications strategy and the live event production behind a major regional content and culinary platform. Teaching is where that experience finds its truest expression: as an Adjunct Professor, Welch is deeply committed to giving students real-world grounding alongside academic rigor, and to building the kind of hands-on experiences — from classroom instruction to the Center’s own launch events — that put students in direct contact with the industry they’re preparing to enter.
Thomas O’Brien, Project Coordinator
Thomas O’Brien is a filmmaker and entrepreneur currently serving as Project Coordinator for the Center for the Creator Economy at Syracuse University, where he helps develop programming for student creators, builds university-wide partnerships, and leads the Center’s brand and content strategy as its first full-time employee. Previously, Thomas served as Chief Operating Officer of Project FreeFall, a media brand focused on elevating music artists and creators through visually driven storytelling, where he helped shape its business model across content campaigns, music videos, and merchandise under the brand’s “Take the Leap” ethos.
Prior to his institutional roles, Thomas served as founder and CEO of Ten Projects Open, which provides social media strategy, political campaign content, actor marketing, and personal brand development across platforms including Instagram and YouTube. His creative work—including viral short-form series and brand campaigns for artists, actors, clothing brands, and public figures—has reached tens of millions of views. Thomas brings a hands-on, creator-first perspective grounded in storytelling, platform strategy, and community-building as the creator economy enters its next phase. He graduated summa cum laude from Syracuse University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film, Cinema, and Video Studies.
Institutional Leadership
J. Michael Haynie
Chancellor and President, Syracuse University
Chancellor Haynie founded the Center for the Creator Economy and continues to champion its growth as part of the University’s broader innovation agenda.
Mark J. Lodato
Dean, S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications
Alex McKelvie
Interim Dean, Martin J. Whitman School of Management
Regina Luttrell
Senior Associate Dean, S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications
Meet the Research Team
Sofia Donolo
Sofia Donolo is a graduate student in the Public Diplomacy and Global Communications program at Syracuse University, a joint program at the Newhouse School of Public Communications and the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. She is currently serving as a Research Assistant on the CCE research team focused on analyzing industry and academic perspectives on the evolving creator economy. Her background in broadcast journalism at CNN, most recently as an Associate Editorial Producer for CNN’s Erin Burnett OutFront, is where she discovered a deep passion for creativity in storytelling.
Maggie DiPatri
Maggie DiPatri is a Research Assistant at the Center for the Creator Economy at Syracuse University. She collaborates with the research team to bridge academic and theoretical perspectives with industry insights, developing research that confronts the big questions around the creator economy and seeks to demystify them. A current Master’s student in the Media Studies program, Maggie’s research interests center on social influence of emerging media technologies and digital cultures, such as the effects of deinfluencing videos and political influencers. Before returning to school, Maggie worked at GBH—Boston’s PBS and NPR station—as an Intern and Digital Production Assistant on Antiques Roadshow and then full-time for three years as an Account Executive in the station’s National Audience Development & Station Services department.