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Tonya M. Evans  

Professor & Global Leader in Tech, IP, Crypto, & Innovation

Tonya M. Evans is a global leader, accomplished academic and administrator, and world-renowned speaker with over twenty years of experience in law, innovation, academia, and entrepreneurship. Dr. Evans currently serves as tenured Professor of Law at Penn State Dickinson Law School. Beginning July 1, 2022, she will commence a five-year co-hire appointment to the Penn State Institute for Computational and Data Sciences to continue her interdisciplinary research. Her work focuses on the legal, regulatory, policy, and economic justice implications of new technologies and innovation; specifically, distributed ledger technologies, cryptocurrencies, and other cryptographically secured digital assets including non-fungible tokens (NFTs), decentralized finance (DeFi), and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).

Dr. Evans was named to the prestigious Forbes 50 Over 50 List in the category of Investment to honor 50 women who are shaping the future of finance, fueling high-growth businesses and forging a more innovative and inclusive financial future. She was also named to the Fastcase 50 of 2021 list, an annual award that recognizes 50 of the smartest, most courageous, innovators, techies, visionaries, and leaders in the law. In 2018, Prof. Evans received the inaugural Blockchain Enterprise Award in the category of Governance and Policy Leadership during the Blockchain Revolution Global Conference in Toronto.

Prior to joining the Dickinson Law faculty, Professor Evans served as Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Professor of Law at the UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law, created and directed the law school’s Blockchain, Cryptocurrency and Law Online Professional Certificate Program.

Dr. Evans served as Chairperson of the Maker DAO’s Maker Ecosystem Growth Foundation from 2020-2021 to oversee the final phase and full decentralization of the MakerDAO. She is also member of the Bermuda Global FinTech Advisory Board and Observing Member of the Global Blockchain Business Council.

In 2020, Dr. Evans created the Advantage Evans™ Academy and launched her popular course, From Cash to Crypto™, and NFT Law Guide for Creatives and Collectors. She also hosts a weekly show, the Tech Intersect™ Podcast, that features both new and notables working at the intersection of law, business, and technology to lead in the future of work, wealth and creativity.

Speech Topics


Next Level Leadership in the Age of Intentional Innovation

How a Non-Traditional Path Can Prepare You to Pivot with Purpose and Thrive in the Digital Economy

From checking boxes and coloring inside the lines to discovering innovative ways to disrupt the status quo, Dr. Evans shares her engaging and inspiring story of professional reinvention and how she mastered living on the leading edge to distinguish herself in the future of work and wealth to future proof both her organization’s market advantage and her career path.

DEI “Decentralized”: How Inclusion and Equity is Essential to Fulfill the Power, Promise and Value Proposition of Web3

In this presentation, Professor Evans explores the important role for advocates and policymakers to ensure the Future of Access, Inclusion and Equity in a Web3 World. Using her own lived experience as a black queer woman, and the inciteful statistics from the FDIC, International Monetary Fund, Ariel/Schwab report on Black Crypto Investors, she discusses the ways that technology can (and should) be used to decentralize work, wealth and creativity in a way that achieves the optimal balance between encouraging robust innovation; protects consumers, investors and businesses; ensures transparency balanced with financial privacy, and promotes access balanced with security especially for those who have been historically and systemically disenfranchised in the current financial system.

From Cash to Crypto: Financial Inclusion in the New Digital Cash Frontier

If you’ve been looking for an unbiased, supportive and straightforward way to learn how cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology are transforming the future of work and wealth. If you believe cryptocurrency is too complicated, too confusing and WAY too risky, this presentation is for you because Professor Evans thought the same when she was first introduced thought the same way. But she’s done the heavy lifting through the jumbled jargon and fringy buzz words to demystify the echo chamber and clarify how to participate fully in a supportive, inclusive environment.

Professor Evans empowers underestimated life-long learners traditionally locked out of tech and finance to take control of their financial futures and participate in the new digital cash economy safely, legally and confidently in a welcoming space so they can stay ahead of the curve and create autonomy, opportunity and generational wealth in the fast-paced, tech-driven world.

Crypto Assets and the Law: The Legal Implications of Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain

In this presentation, Professor Evans explores the legal issues present in integrating blockchain technology and crypto assets into the public, private and charitable sectors. She also unpacks the varied and various local, national, and international policy issues associated with achieving the optimal balance between encouraging robust innovation, protecting consumers, investors, and businesses, to ensure transparency balanced with financial privacy, and access balanced with security especially for those who have been historically and systemically disenfranchised in the current financial system.

This presentation can also be delivered as a corporate training/workshop.

Decode the Future of Work and Wealth

Most crypto educators teach you what digital money is: how to buy it, trade it, “HODL” it and sell it. However, those courses rarely, if ever, prepare you for the legal consequences of missteps and misinformation. But ignorance of the law is no excuse. And relying on search engines, social media or anyone who starts a sentence with “I’m not a lawyer but …” is a recipe for legal disaster. Getting into crypto, DeFi, and NFTs without a solid foundation in the legal implications, can get you into really hot water and expose you and your assets to unnecessary risk and potential legal liability.

In this presentation, noted crypto law and policy expert and educator, Professor Tonya M. Evans shares her crypto asset blueprint to achieve access, inclusion, and empowerment in the new decentralized finance economy so you can engage safely, legally, and confidently in the future of work and wealth.

Learn industry best practices and learn from a legal expert and demonstrated leader who has taught thousands of students to get in and win in the digital cash economy. Especially those historically excluded and left on the sidelines of tech and finance.

This presentation can also be delivered as a corporate training/workshop

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