Shahla Ghobadi is a Professor of Information Management at Leeds University Business School, University of Leeds. She earned her PhD in Information Systems from UNSW Australia (2008–2012), with a background in IT Management and Industrial Engineering. She worked as Assistant Professor of Information Systems at the University of Manchester (2015-2019). She was a Visiting Scholar in 2014 at J.Mack Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University, Atlanta.  

Her research examines how digital technologies are developed and used to advance social change. By connecting social themes such as knowledge sharing and collaboration, user and crowd participation, digital activism, and development ethics, her research contributes to a holistic picture of the dynamics that underpin successful digital development. 

She employs qualitative interviews, surveys, virtual ethnography, and experimental methods, specialising in longitudinal case studies that theorise the growth of teams, startups, and organisations. Her work is grounded in industry experience spanning software entrepreneurship (2002), automobile manufacturing (2003–2006), and e-Science development (2011–2014).

Dr Ghobadi's research has been published, or is forthcoming, in leading journals such as the Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Journal of Management Studies, British Journal of Management, Journal of Strategic Information Systems, Journal of Management Information Systems, Information Systems Journal, Information and Organization, Information and Management, Information Systems Frontiers, and Journal of Systems and Software. 

She received research grants and awards from bodies such as the British Academy (2017), Australian Endeavour Executive Award (2014), Australian School of Business (2008-2011), and ASB Experimental Research Grant (2011).

To access her research, visit Google Scholar, ResearchGate (open access articles), and The Conversation. She writes in Medium and has been featured in podcasts on topics at the intersection of business, technology, and society.