Faculty

Professor J.P. Allen is a pioneering researcher and educator in the field of online/internet business, specializing in open technologies and the digital transformation of organizations and society. He is the author of Digital Entrepreneurship and Technology and Inequality: Concentrated Wealth in a Digital World.

As founding chair of the Technology, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship Department, Dr. Allen pioneered the development of internet business classes, which guide non-technical...

Assistant Professor Zachary C. Burns specializes in managerial and organizational behavior with research in the psychology of morality and ethics, applications in law, and judgment and decision-making. His works surrounds behavioral patterns, intellectual property and intentionality. Dr. Burns previously taught as a Visiting Assistant Professor and Postdoctoral Fellow at Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.

He has had articles on his research published in the Journal of...

Professor Mark V. Cannice is an internationally recognized scholar, teacher, and speaker on entrepreneurship and venture capital. He is Department Chair and Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation with the University of San Francisco School of Management.

Cannice writes the widely-followed quarterly Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist Confidence Index Report® which is published by ProQuest and EBSCO, indexed globally on Bloomberg Professional Services in 170 countries (Bloomberg ticker...

Roger Chen brings to USF forward-thinking expertise in the fields of corporate innovation and growth, competition and global strategy - areas he views as entirely interdependent. By developing a balanced approach to his research endeavors - devoting equal time and effort between pure quantitative/academic research and case research methods - Dr. Chen embodies academic rigor, benefiting his students, fellow academics, global corporations and communities with his egalitarian work philosophy.

Pr...

Ludwig B. Chincarini, CFA, PhD, is Professor of Finance in the School of Management at the University of San Francisco as well as an advisor to United States Commodity Fund Investments with over fifteen years of experience in the financial industry specializing in portfolio management, quantitative equity management, and derivatives. He also works with an angel group to help start-up companies. Prior to that he was a member of the academic council of Index IQ which was bought by NY Life in 2015...

Assistant Professor Fernando Comiran brings to USF both an enthusiasm for accounting and a philosophy that attempts to integrate real-world application and leading-edge research in the classroom. His research areas of interest include Earnings Management, Accounting Fraud, Voluntary Disclosure, Financial Statement Analysis, and Security Valuation.

Currently, Professor Comiran is focusing his research on individual investor behavior and company incentives to better understand how disclosure...

Kimberly Rae Connor is the author of Conversions and Visions in the Writings of African American Women (Tennessee, 1994) and Imagining Grace: Liberating Theologies in the Slave Narrative Tradition (Illinois, 2000). She has written extensively on African American religious life and cultural production and multicultural and Ignatian pedagogy. Connor has also been active as an editor for Oxford University Press and in service to the American Academy of Religion.

Although trained in the...

Assistant Professor John Gonzales is internationally recognized for his service work as an economist focusing on transition economies, emerging market economics, and monetary policy. With the aim of helping his students develop a more comprehensive understanding of the intricate and interdependent network of variables that affect our global economy, Gonzales teaches courses in capital market theory, corporate finance, investment and analysis, micro and macroeconomics, monetary economics, equity...

Professor Tom Grossman likes to see non-technical people harness the power of analytics and technology to lead their organizations. His interests include business analytics, spreadsheet engineering, spreadsheet information systems, managerial communication of analytical work, and analysis-driven process improvement.

He spent the early years of his career at an analytics consulting firm working on large-scale systems for operations and planning in the United States and Scandinavia. His...

Keith Hunter's primary research interests revolve around organizational networks, power, and leadership. He is particularly interested in how social networks both influence and reflect active mental models and power dynamics within groups and organizations. His investigations of the patterns of interaction among people and their implications for human behavior and organizational outcomes are of critical significance to tomorrow's business leaders.

His rich background inspires his research and...

Professor Stephen J. Huxley is recognized by his fellow colleagues, students and a number of professional organizations for his achievements in academia, having been a teacher and researcher at USF since 1973. Most notably, he is the recipient of the Franz Edelman Outstanding Management Science Award, the highest award given in the profession and the Sarlo Prize, the highest award bestowed to a faculty member for teaching that exemplifies USF's mission and values.

With research...

Nicholas Imparato is a professor of marketing and management at the University of San Francisco and formerly a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University (1996-2012).

During a lengthy series of special leaves of absence from the university, he held positions as a senior executive and board member at publicly listed (NYSE, NASDAQ) and closely held companies here and in Europe. As a speaker and adviser in over 35 countries with Visa, IBM, and other organizations, Professor...

Assistant Professor Ryan Langan’s research area lies in branding and corporate social responsibility with a focus on understanding how consumers perceive and respond to firms who engage in corporate philanthropy.  His current projects explore the potential for corporate giving to elicit feelings of gratitude on the part of consumers. Langan’s research has been published in the Journal of Brand Management, Journal of Business Research and the Encyclopedia of Public Administration and Public...

Kevin Lo, professor in the Department of Humanistic Management and Hospitality, is a graduate of the USF joint Master of Business Administration (MBA) - Master of Arts in Asia Pacific Studies (MAPS) program. His scholarly work and teaching focus on emotional and cultural intelligence.

Associate Professor Thomas Maier brings to USF more than 20 years of industry experience, a wealth of current research, and a honed experiential teaching methodology. Prior to academia, Professor Maier was a senior level executive in the hotel, restaurant, and food and beverage industries. His research interests include generational leadership, revenue management theory, and experiential learning.

In the classroom, Professor Maier centers his pedagogy on experiential learning and visible...

Dr. Courtney Masterson teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on topics including diversity and inclusion; work and well-being; research methods; and community-engaged learning. As a teacher, she strives to create an engaging learning environment that enables students to cultivate knowledge and develop personally and professionally. This includes providing students opportunities to partner in meaningful ways with the University’s surrounding community. 

Courtney is also an active...

Robert Mefford, Professor of Finance, brings a breadth of international experience to USF, with research emphasis on global supply chains, lean production systems, behavioral finance, and the productivity of global enterprises. Professor Mefford's business acumen is founded on senior management positions with leading health care providers including Blue Cross and Kaiser Foundation Health Plan.

In studying the productivity of off-shore operations, Professor Mefford has explored how management...

Professor Vijay Mehrotra serves as a professor of Business Analytics at the University of San Francisco, where he has recently developed an innovative module for his MBA students that is focused on Customer Success Management (the first such academic program in the world). He also leads the Business Analytics concentration within USF's MBA program and teaches courses in Business Analytics, Predictive Modeling, and Data Mining.

Since 1992, he has been active in the world of analytics...

Michelle Millar researches sustainability and corporate social responsibility in the lodging, meeting, and event management industries. She studies the choices travelers make when choosing sustainable travel products and what factors are most important to them when it comes to sustainable hospitality products and services.

She developed a framework used by hospitality educators and industry professionals to identify the sustainable skills most needed by students when entering the industry.

Frank Ohara is recognized for his dedication to teaching excellence by the School of Management as the eight-time recipient of the Outstanding Teaching Award. Establishing the USF National Honor Society Chapter of the International Financial Management Association, Ohara continues to serve as faculty advisor for the organization today. With over fifteen years' financial management and administrative experience in the computer manufacturing and financial services industries, he brings extensive...

Professor Jennifer Parlamis's academic career has centered on pioneering social-psychological research in the areas of negotiation, conflict resolution, communication, and organization dynamics. Specifically, she studies the impact of technology on negotiation outcomes and the role of anger and incompetency emotions in negotiation and conflict contexts. In addition, she has written on ageism in organizations as well as negotiation pedagogy.

She employs the latest scholarly research to help...

Anthony Patino is a renowned expert in entertainment, advertising, and promotion, consumer behavior, public policy and marketing analytics. He holds degrees in marketing, business administration, planning and social policy from Duke University, Harvard University, and Temple University. His widely-published research takes him to conferences all over the U.S.

During his career in entertainment, Patino worked in marketing, sales and research at leading entertainment firms like Sony Picture...

William (Billy) Riggs, PhD, AICP, LEED AP is a global expert and thought leader in the areas of autonomy and smart transportation, housing, economics and urban development. He has over 100 publications in these areas and has had his work featured in multiple national media outlets — including the Economist, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and the Atlantic.  He is currently a professor at the University of San Francisco School of Management, director of strategy and research at Sustinere...

Claudia Roehl, Instructor of Accounting, brings to USF over ten years of experience as a Finance Director, V.P., Financial Analyst Officer and Senior Accountant, with a research concentration in structured finance, and specifically, collateralized mortgage obligations (CMOs) and asset-backed securities (ABS). Her work aims to leverage and combine economic and accounting studies with her extensive knowledge of financial investment instruments. Drawing from her own explorations into credit...

Shivani Shukla works in the fields of Operations Research, Statistics, and Game Theory. Her research is in security investment issues in the realm of supply chains and logistical networks that examine the financial and strategic implications of cooperation among various entities of the networks. In addition to the applied benefits, her goal is to make methodological contributions to successfully bring together optimization and game theoretic techniques in presence of uncertainty.

Her work has...

Richard Stackman is a tenured professor in the Humanistic Management and Hospitality Department. His coursework focuses on topics that include organizational behavior, organizational change and development, leadership versus management, and complexity science. Stackman’s recent research with Dr. Linda Henderson explores the gender differences on project team membership, and his scholarly activities underscore personal value systems and complexity theory in organizational functioning. This...

Professor Nicholas Tay’s research focuses on building theoretical models and conducting empirical studies to understand how human behaviors and market frictions interplay to affect the pricing of financial assets and the stability of financial markets. He uncovers relationships and patterns through financial econometrics and non-economic concepts, including agent-based modeling, social network analysis, cellular automata, genetic programming, fuzzy logic, chaos theory, fractal analysis, wavelet...

Associate Professor Ricardo Villarreal De Silva brings to USF years of experience in consumer behavior research and methodology. He was the lead researcher on two large consumer behavior studies that brought together experts in the advertising industry with his research expertise. That expertise started in multicultural marketing, where his theory of ethnicity provided great insight into understanding U.S. Hispanics’ consumer behavior. Recently, his work has focused on applying sophisticated...

Neil's principle area of research is the role of virtue and morality (or the lack thereof) in organizations, specifically the presence of courage and cowardice within organizational life. His work explores the psychological mechanisms and consequences of virtuous behavior as part of expected occupational roles. By focusing on high-risk occupations such as ordnance disposal, private military contracting, and air-traffic control, Neil attempts to develop greater insight into how workers construct...

Richard D. Waters is an associate professor in the School of Management, where he teaches strategic communication and communication management courses. His primary research interests are fundraising, stakeholder loyalty and relationship cultivation, and the use of new technologies in organizational communication efforts.

He serves on the editorial review boards at Public Relations Review, Journal of Public Relations Research, Journal of Public and Nonprofit Sector Management, Journal of...

Professor Xiaohua Yang teaches international business and is the founding director of the China Business Studies Initiative in the School of Management at the USF. She specializes in the internationalization of Chinese firms, MNE corporate social responsibility and sustainable development, international R&D strategic alliances, and foreign market entry strategies. She has taught and lectured in the USA, Australia, China, Taiwan, and Europe, and is a recipient of multiple Best Paper Awards from...

Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Linda Henderson, Ph.D. has been a leader in departmental and program development at USF in her roles as department chair and director in project management and organizational behavior. She continues her programmatic leadership for the undergraduate management major. Her work as a senior level consultant for clients including Visa International, Hewlett-Packard, Dell Computers, Blue Shield of California, and Genentech informs her teaching and research on...