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A lightly browned grilled cheese sandwich – crust on - with a bowl of tomato soup is one of Samuel Phineas Upham's favorite meals. He grew up in New York City and has spent time in Boston, Philadephia, Toronto and San Francisco. At Harvard University, he studied philosophy with Rober Nozick. After college, he worked at startups and as a journalist before returning to graduate school at Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania. Upham later worked at Morgan Stanley before joining a hedge fund / family office where he has traded global macro and invested in illiquid special situations. Apart from work he is interested in the political, economic, and social roles that institutions play in innovation and productivity. He studies how these institutions allow specific assumptions and restrictions to influence free enterprise and innovation. Upham edited a book of informal interviews called Philosophers in Conversation which was published by Routledge Press and has even been translated into Mandarin. Since then he has edited two more books of essays in economics and philosophy. Samuel Phineas Upham has served for almost the last decade on the Young Friends Board of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology where he directed community service efforts in West Philadelphia. Upham loves the outdoors and climbs mountains and mushrooms hunts in New Hampshire and California. He still packs grilled cheese sandwiches in these excursions. Upham was a forward on the nationally ranked business school rugby team and is a Term Member on the Council on Foreign Relations.
