Driehaus College of Business Welcomes New Faculty

This fall, the Driehaus College of Business welcomed nine full-time faculty members who bring a range of expertise in marketing, accountancy, entrepreneurship, human resources and operations management to the college’s classrooms. From award-winning research to working at a Big Four accounting firm, the college’s new faculty represent both real-world experience and scholarly knowledge.

Below, we highlight the diverse backgrounds and research areas each new faculty member brings to DePaul.

Sina Ansari
Assistant Professor, Department of Management & Entrepreneurship

Prior to earning a PhD in industrial engineering and management sciences from Northwestern University, Sina Ansari co-founded and managed a supply chain management and consulting company based in Iran. He joins the Department of Management & Entrepreneurship as an assistant professor, teaching courses in business analytics, decision-making and operations management. An accomplished scholar, Ansari’s research has led to mathematical models and practical policies that optimize the operational performance of systems in service and health care. He has also worked with the Northwestern Memorial Hospital Emergency Medicine on projects such as improving patient-waiting experience and reducing discharge opioid prescribing. In addition to his PhD, he earned master’s and bachelor’s degrees in industrial engineering from the Iran University of Science and Technology.

"One of the perks of being a professor is the opportunity to interact with motivated students, some of whom are on the verge of stepping into the real world and are eager to build on their prior knowledge and professional experiences,” Ansari says. “As an instructor, I plan to utilize real-world cases and state-of-the-art analytics tools to actively engage students in constructing their own analytics knowledge through hands-on, minds-on experiences."

Richard Devine
Assistant Professor, Department of Management & Entrepreneurship

Richard Devine joins DePaul as an assistant professor in the Department of Management & Entrepreneurship, where he teaches courses in strategy and entrepreneurship. Devine, whose expertise has been featured in several national media stories, focuses his research on non-market strategy, leadership and individual differences and entrepreneurship. He is especially fascinated by the intersection of business and economics as well as the resulting implications for government policy. His work has been published in leading peer-reviewed academic journals, such as the Academy of Management Journal and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. He earned his PhD in business administration from Florida State University and a bachelor’s degree in finance from Salisbury University.

“I look forward to communicating the latest research insights to students and giving them the tools to be successful in their careers,” Devine says. “Mentoring students toward their professional goals is a great privilege.”

Geoffrey Durso
Assistant Professor, Department of Marketing

Geoffrey Durso joins the Department of Marketing as an assistant professor, teaching consumer behavior and digital marketing courses. Prior to joining DePaul, Durso served as a postdoctoral research fellow in marketing at the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University. His award-winning research in social and consumer psychology examines individuals’ evaluations, emotions and social judgments. More specifically, his work focuses on the experience of ambivalence, the management of expectations versus reality, and the underlying psychological effects of common pharmacological treatments. Durso previously worked in sales, the service industry and market research, and also has consulted with businesses on their product positioning and pricing decisions. He has undergraduate degrees in marketing and psychology from Indiana University and master’s and PhD degrees in psychology from The Ohio State University.

“If you want to understand consumers, then you need to understand people and yourself. A foundation in psychological science is therefore crucial for students and professionals pursuing marketing careers, besides being useful for everyone in their day-to-day lives,” Durso says. “My research and teaching emphasize making connections between scientific theories of cognition, emotion and action with practical outcomes, be they in the marketplace or in our broader social lives.”

Kirsten Fanning
Assistant Professor, School of Accountancy & MIS

Kirsten Fanning is a new assistant professor at the School of Accountancy & MIS, where she teaches managerial accounting to undergraduate students in the Strobel Honors Accounting program, as well as financial accounting to MBA students. Fanning previously served as a faculty member at Villanova University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she was included on the List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent. Fanning’s award-winning research has been published in several prestigious academic journals, and she uses experimental methods to examine how accounting information and its presentation influence investors’ judgments. Her accounting research also examines judgments made by managers and other decision-makers within organizations in corporate governance-related settings and accounting control environments. Fanning earned her bachelor’s degree in accounting from Drexel University and a PhD in accounting from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

"I was a first-generation college student in my family and I remember some of the unique challenges I faced,” Fanning says. “I’m looking forward to connecting, giving back and making a positive impact on first-generation college students.”

Bright (Yue) Hong
Assistant Professor, School of Accountancy & MIS

Bright (Yue) Hong brings both real-world experience and academic expertise to her role as an assistant professor in the School of Accountancy & MIS. Before joining DePaul, Hong was a visiting assistant professor of accounting at the University of Iowa and worked in financial accounting advisory services for Ernst & Young in New York City. Her current research interests focus on individual judgment and decision-making in auditing and financial reporting. She has received the Research Advisory Board Grant and the Access to Audit Personnel Grant from the Center for Audit Quality. Hong has a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, a master’s degree in accounting from Michigan State University as well as a PhD in accounting from Emory University.

“I came to the U.S. by myself in 2009,” Hong says. “My life and career in the U.S. would not be possible without the value of diversity, equity and inclusion. I am drawn to DePaul because the accounting department is extremely diverse in all aspects (including research topics, methods, gender and culture backgrounds). I felt that I can relate to my colleagues and students at DePaul and that I can have a voice here.”

Goran Kuljanin
Assistant Professor, Department of Management & Entrepreneurship

Goran Kuljanin is an assistant professor in the Department of Management & Entrepreneurship, where he teaches courses on business and people analytics, human resources management and organizational behavior. Kuljanin earned his undergraduate degree in psychology from DePaul, and also holds both master’s and PhD degrees in industrial organizational psychology from Michigan State University. He co-founded Jugo Projects, a consultancy business that helps companies solve HR analytics issues, with DePaul Assistant Professor of Management Grace Lemmon. He also serves as a consultant for Axiom Consulting Partners. Kuljanin is the author of several award-winning research papers, which have focused on applying computational theorizing and modeling to investigate HR management.

“In my teaching, I help my students learn how to apply analytics to advance the management of any company's most important resource: its people. We clearly see present and emerging data-tracking technologies in and outside of the workplace provide so many creative and rich opportunities for employees and the organizations they compose to better understand how humans work together,” Kuljanin says. “With deepened analytics skills, my students may aptly contribute to meaningful conversations about not just what but how and why work gets done.”

Ignacio Luri
Assistant Professor, Department of Marketing

Spain native Ignacio Luri is a new assistant professor in the Department of Marketing. Prior to coming to the U.S., Luri worked in the marketing department of a wholesale retailer based in Spain and recently worked as an academic consultant for the Filene Research Institute, a think tank established by the Credit Union National Association. Luri's professional career has been heavily influenced by experiences abroad, including a visit to the Institute for Social Marketing and Health in Stirling, United Kingdom, and a visiting scholar position at the University of Arizona. His research examines online conversation and discourse and how they affect consumers in finance, health or retail. Luri holds a bachelor’s degree in business management from the University of Las Palmas and master’s and PhD degrees in marketing from the University of Arizona.

“As an educator, I aim to expand students’ views by inviting them to think critically and challenge their own intellectual comfort zones,” Luri says. “In the classroom, this means developing perspective-taking and empathy, as well as showing through real world cases the ethical dilemmas of a global, interconnected market.”

Jeff Ng
Assistant Professor, School of Accountancy & MIS

Jeff Ng is an assistant professor at the School of Accountancy & MIS whose research examines financial accounting, International Financial Reporting Standards, executive compensation and tax accounting. Outside of academia, Ng has worked with various stakeholders, including adapting an accounting textbook for the international market, assisting a startup with corporate formation and governance, and providing tax preparation and consultation services. Prior to teaching at DePaul, Ng worked at The Chinese University of Hong Kong where he earned numerous faculty teaching awards. A DePaul alumnus, Ng earned his master’s degree in accountancy and holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as well as an MBA and PhD in accounting from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

“I chose to return to DePaul because I am drawn to the engaging, yet down-to-earth environment,” he says. “I also appreciate the diverse backgrounds of the faculty and students, allowing for learning from different perspectives and experiences.”

Khadija Ali Vakeel
Assistant Professor, Department of Management & Entrepreneurship

Khadija Ali Vakeel is a trained computer scientist whose teaching focuses on business analytics and database management systems. She joins the Department of Management & Entrepreneurship as an assistant professor. Vakeel’s research examines online retailing, eye-tracking and recommender systems. She has been published in several academic journals, and has received the Journal of Advertising Best Paper Ward and two nominations for the best paper award at the International Conference on Research in advertising. Vakeel holds an undergraduate degree in information technology from the Shri GS Institute of Science and Technology and a PhD in information systems management from the Indian Institute of Management Indore.

“I aim to prepare students for tomorrow– amidst uncertainty and struggle to ultimately emerge as business leaders,” Vakeel says. “Data  all around us has helped us predict what will happen one month from now, six months from now, during these unprecedented times. I want to give the power of data to students– the ability to predict the future and make informed decisions.”

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