Business education is booming at the Foster School, which welcomes eight new members to its expanding faculty. Each brings a wealth of expertise and accomplishment—and even greater promise—to Foster this year. Here’s a brief look at the faculty class of 2019.
Ties de Kok – Assistant Professor of Accounting – recently earned his PhD at Tilburg University – nominated for the best doctoral dissertation at Tilburg – spent 2018 as a visiting scholar at the Foster School – studies financial accounting, capital market research, management accounting, natural language processing and computer science – fun fact: is a proficient 3D modeler.
Alicia DeSantola – Assistant Professor of Management and Organization – recently earned her PhD in organizational behavior at Harvard University – studies new venture development, entrepreneurial teams, technology and innovation strategy, and venture capital – won a Certificate of Distinction in Teaching at Harvard and the Vincenti Thesis Prize for masters work at Stanford – fun fact: is a multi-linguist who has studied Spanish, French, Latin and Greek… so far.
Brian Gale – Assistant Professor of Accounting – recently earned his PhD at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign – previously earned his JD from the University of Chicago Law School where he was editor of the Chicago Law Review – studies judgment and decision making, accounting regulation, information processing and investors’ use of financial reporting – winner of the Figge Distinguished Teaching Assistant Award at Illinois – fun fact: has visited the lowest and highest points in the Lower 48 in the same day.
Andrew Hafenbrack – Assistant Professor of Management & Organization – earned his PhD from INSEAD – joins Foster from the Católica-Lisbon School of Business and Economics – earned CLSBE Best Teacher Award at CLSBE – studies mindfulness and performance, multicultural experiences, decision-making, and social identity – mindfulness research has received widespread media coverage – won Best Paper Awards from Academy of Management and European AOM – named to Poets & Quants “40 Best Business School Professors Under 40” – fun fact: studied opera for many years.
Lalit Jain – Assistant Professor of Marketing and International Business – earned his PhD in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin – research scientist in the UW’s Allen School of Computer Science since 2018 – co-founded Seventh Harmonic LLC – expert at building machine learning and adaptive collection algorithms and systems with humans in the loop – fun fact: favorite company is Indian Trunk Sale, his mom’s clothing shop in Knoxville, TN.
Lukas Kremens – Assistant Professor of Finance – recently earned his PhD at the London School of Economics – previously worked as an investment banking analyst at Rothschild – studies international asset pricing, macro finance, and financial intermediation – two-time winner of the Class Teacher Award at LSE – won best paper awards from the Swiss Society for Financial Markets and the Annual Conference in International Finance – fun fact: passionate soccer (aka football) player and fan of Borussia Moenchengladbach.
Russell Walker – Senior Lecturer of Marketing – joins Foster from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management – at Kellogg, served as clinical professor of managerial economics and decision sciences and associate director of the Zell Center for Risk Research – won 2011 Kellogg Impact Award – studies analytics, big data, digital strategies, data monetization, sports analytics, risk management, data-driven marketing, decision sciences, and international business strategy – author of three books on big data and risk management – fun fact: is an avid horticulturist.
Mingwen Yang – Assistant Professor of Information Systems – recently earned her PhD from UT-Dallas – studies fintech, online reputation management, cloud computing security and business intelligence and analytics – runner-up for Best Paper in the 2018 INFORMS E-Business Cluster – fun fact: has a good sense of direction and enjoys orienting by maps.