PhD Student Bios
First-Year PhD Student Bios:
Rob Anthony (U.S.) AB Occidental College, MBA Harvard
He has pursued a dual career as a general management consultant and educator. As a consultant, Anthony has a broad practice assisting global corporate clients in the areas of change management, strategy innovation, and leadership development. His experience includes working with groups and teams across levels, functions, industries, and geographies to develop competitive visions, solve problems, implement strategies, and build capabilities. As an educator, Anthony is an instructor of organization behavior, leadership, management, and teamwork skills at the Hult International Business School, where he also serves as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. He has taught leadership and change management in executive programs at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business and conducted research for the Harvard Business School in the area of general management. He is co-author of the article “Leading Successful Change Initiatives”, published in the Drucker Foundation book, Leading Beyond the Walls. Anthony holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and an AB, magna cum laude, from Occidental College in Los Angeles. He lives in Lexington, Massachusetts.
Martin Dias (U.S.) BS University of Pennsylvania, MBA Babson College
He comes to Bentley to research design and implementation strategies for collaborative technologies — the features and forces that increase the utilization rates as well as the effectiveness of collaborative systems (group support software enabling goal-oriented activities). He is also interested in influencing policy decisions to help bridge the digital divide. Dias worked for State Street Corporation for 16 years – including more than 12 years on IT-related projects and more than 10 years in leadership positions. Dias obtained his MBA from Babson College and his BS in Public Policy and Management from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. He taught “Introduction to Management Information Systems” as an adjunct faculty member at Eastern Nazarene College. He is a member of the Information Systems Doctoral Student Association of The PhD Project (KPMG Foundation) as well as an alumnus of the INROADS internship program. Dias enjoys spending time with his family and mentoring teens through a local youth ministry.
Michele Jurgens (U.S.) BA University of California at Berkeley, MBA INSEAD
She has more than 20 years of international experience in management consulting and executive-level corporate management encompassing strategy, marketing, quality, and executive development. Prior to coming to Boston, Jurgens lived and worked in Europe. She graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a BA degree in economics and from INSEAD with an MBA. Her areas of research interest include globalization and the impact of cultural differences on managerial practices. She has published a number of cases and a book entitled Total Customer Satisfaction: Lessons from 50 European Companies, co-author Professor Jacques Horovitz (IMD). Pitman/Financial Times (Irwin in U.S.) 1991.
Paul Ledoux (U.S.) BS Worcester State, MBA Worcester Polytechnic Institute
He has more than 15 years of operations management experience, most of which are in the distribution industry. His most recent employer is Bunzl New England. As such, he has been responsible for finding innovative ways to increase efficiency while adhering to company policies, department of transportation regulations, and union contracts. He has dealt extensively with the Teamsters Union and has put much effort into understanding contract language and interpreting collective bargaining agreements. Ledoux holds a BS in Business Administration from Worcester State College (magna cum laude) and a MBA from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. While working on his MBA, he served as a graduate assistant, allowing him to work closely with professors as both a teacher’s assistant and research assistant. Ledoux’s research interests include business ethics, CSR, innovation (strategic and product), and information system strategy. A more specific interest is the issue of product quality with new technologies (frequently software).
Michael McLaughlin (U.S.) BS & MBA, University of Mass, Amherst He graduated with a BS in Chemical Engineering in 2000 and then was a process engineer at two microchip factories. He was heavily involved in getting the automation and statistical process control software to work at the second factory, a state of the art start-up planned to run completely by automation. He has studied neuroscience and philosophy in depth, and some cognitive science and psychology. These studies are inspired in part by his passion as a lifelong learner and musician. His interests are many and varied, but in general, McLaughlin focuses on organizational learning and/or creativity within an operations context (i.e. in a manufacturing setting). He earned a BS in Chemical Engineering, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a MBA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Ekin Pehlivan (Turkey) BA, MBA Bilkent University
She has a variety of different research interests mainly in the areas of marketing strategy and consumer behavior. She focuses on nonprofit organizations marketing, internet marketing and customization of products and services via customer feedback. Pehlivan holds a BA in International Relations and an MBA. She also completed some graduate work on conflict analysis and resolution. Before her decision to pursue an academic path, she worked in marketing and recruitment of undergraduate programs. She spent a semester in the University of Texas at Austin as a visiting student, and transferred from Temple University where she completed her first year in the doctoral program. Currently, Pehlivan is working on a paper exploring the underlying conditions by which students choose PhD programs. She is also starting a new project on product/service design according to customer feedback on the internet.
Craig Randall (U.S.) BS Carnegie Mellon, MBA Harvard
His research interests include early technology ventures & innovative IT software, internal resource allocation decisions, venture financial issues and global implications. Randall founded Availl Inc, a storage and collaboration software company, which was sold to a public firm in late 2006. Over the last 15 years, he has been VP of Marketing, Product Management, Sales, and Support, as well as CFO for high technology companies ranging from founding phase to the Global 500. Randall has been involved in corporate acquisitions as well as taking two companies public. Randall holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and an MBA from Harvard Graduate School of Business.
Mayokun Soremekun (Nigeria) BA Tusculum College, MS Western California University
She holds a BA in Mathematics with a concentration in Computer Science from Tusculum College where she graduated summa cum laude and was also a member of the Bonner Leader Group. She has an MSc in Applied Mathematics from Western Carolina University where she focused her Master’s project on optimization and mathematical modeling. She served as a graduate assistant and mathematics instructor at Western Carolina University where she taught college algebra to the incoming freshman class. She has worked as a consultant in the Products Operating Unit at Accenture Nigeria where she worked on various projects among which are the analysis and implementation of an adequate supply chain structure and shared services structure for a food and beverage company, the creation of a Human Resources Shared Services center and facilitating the expansion of a bank’s operations in Nigeria. Soremekun’s research interests currently lie in the area of data mining and studying the global digital divide phenomenon using quantitative tools.
Maria Skaletsky (Russia) MBA Bentley College
Her research interest focuses on data mining, in particular, web usage and web content mining. Since 2003, Skaletsky holds the position of research consultant at Bentley’s Academic Technology Center. She is responsible for consulting faculty in all aspects of research approach, design, and implementation in the selection of appropriate methodology for data gathering and statistical analysis. Skaletsky also assists faculty in the use of large research databases such as CRSP, Compustat, and Execu Comp, as well as the use of various quantitative and qualitative software such as SAS, SPSS, NVivo and other. Prior to joining the ATC, Skaletsky received her MBA with concentration in Business Data Analysis from Bentley College.
Second-Year PhD Student Bios:
Kwadwo Asare (Ghana) MBA Cornell University, MS Bentley College, BS St. Francis College
He is a CPA with experience at companies such as Coopers & Lybrand, Intel Corporation, and Merck & Co. His research interests include managerial accounting issues such as incentives and compensation, as well as the role of corporate governance in firm performance and investment decision-making. He has teaching experience at the University of Iowa, where he assisted with research on the application of concepts such as total quality management (TQM), transfer pricing, variance analysis, and Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. He earned an MBA from Cornell University, a Master of Science in Computer Information Systems from Bentley College, and a BS in Accounting from St. Francis College, N.Y. Asare was awarded the Bentley Doctoral Prize for the best Accountancy Student in 2007. He enjoys soccer, basketball and boxing.
Yukika Awazu (Japan) MBA and MA in Economics from the University of Illinois at Chicago
Her research interests are organizational networking, management of innovation, the social/practical aspects of knowledge management, and communications in organizations, global information systems, emergent technologies, and strategic issues with information systems. She has co-authored a book entitled Engaged Knowledge Management (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) and her articles have appeared in more than twenty global business and academic journals such as Business Strategy Review, HR Magazine, Technovation, Singapore Management Review, Malaysian Institute of Management (MIM) Review, European Management Journal, Journal of Knowledge Management, among others. In the past, she has been working for organizations in the United States and Japan, and co-founded the Engaged Enterprise, a global research and strategy consulting organization. Awazu was an Earhart Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and selected as an inaugural Henry E. Rauch Doctoral Fellow at Bentley College. Awazu is listed in Who’s Who in America and in Who’s Who of Emergent Leaders. In her spare time, she enjoys reading mystery and nonfiction literature and listens to Cape Verdean Music.
Dax Jacobson (U.S.) BA Utah State University, MBA Bentley College
He is interested broadly in the impact of information technology on organizations, groups, and individuals. More specifically his research interests include the use of technology in interorganizational collaboration, IT governance, and the diffusion of innovations. He is currently working on a NSF-funded research project on Public Safety Networks with faculty members at Bentley College and Penn State. Jacobson has worked in corporate sales and marketing for an Internet service provider and for the U.S. Air Force as a senior buyer on several multimillion-dollar contracts. He holds a Dual BA in History and Finance from Utah State University and an MBA from Bentley College. He serves as a Boy Scout leader and enjoys basketball, music, and a good book and loves spending time with his family.
Guangying Hua (China) BS and MS Tianjin University
She is focused on combining the power of information technology, management and strategy in business. Hua’s research interests are focused on data mining, management science and business intelligence. As a software engineer and data analyst, Hua has provided aviation business information solutions for the China airline industry. She has been published in several journals including Industrial Engineering Journal in China. At Tianjin University, Hua earned a BS in Management Information Systems and an MS with Best Dissertation Award in Management Science and Engineering with a concentration in Management Information Systems. She enjoys tennis, swimming and travel.
Christine Nolder (U.S.) MBA Bentley College
Her research interests revolve around the concept of implicit biases, which include but are not limited to gender, ethnicity, ethical values, and social responsibility. She is interested in how subconscious biases of this nature can affect the judgment and decision making processes of auditors, accountants and investors. She serves in the dual role of lecturer in accountancy and assistant to the chair of the Accountancy Department at Bentley. Nolder has held teaching positions at Boston College, Suffolk University, Northeastern University, Lesley College, Newbury College and Stonehill College; and accounting posts at Politzer & Haney, WorldTravel Partners and Tofias, Fleishman and Shapiro. She enjoys macrobiotic cooking, nutrition and fishing.
Sonia Vilvovsky (Israel) MS Bentley College
She has more than a decade of IT experience in Israel, developing large information systems and serving as an independent consultant. Her research interests are in information systems introduction and organizational alignment, gender differences in computer use, outsourcing and off-shoring, and use of information technology in public and not-for-profit organizations. Vilvovsky earned an MS in Accountancy from Bentley College. She enjoys reading Russian poetry and has a passion for needlecraft.
Guillaume Weisang (France) MS National Polytechnic Institute of Engineering
His research interests focus on data mining, particularly its techniques and applications to finance both corporate and market oriented. An engineer in computer science and applied mathematics, he has research experience at Toulouse Business School, where he studied the numerical computation of default probabilities in Gabillon’s model on corporate debt. He has also worked in a research position on quantitative strategies for the French-based asset manager SGAM AI. Weisang holds an MS in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics from the National Polytechnic Institute of Engineering in Electro technology, Electronics, Computer Science, Hydraulics and Telecommunications, and a specialized master in Financial Engineering and Modeling. In 2007, he was awarded the Bentley Doctoral Prize for best Business Student for the academic year 2007-2008. Weisang enjoys literature, sailing and soccer.
Kim Westermann (U.S.) BS California Polytechnic State University
Her research centers on auditor judgment and decision making, as well as implications of Sarbanes-Oxley Act. A CPA, she has worked as a manager for the Learning and Education division of PricewaterhouseCoopers, where she was responsible for delivering and developing audit training programs for associates. Westermann also worked as a senior auditor at Ernst & Young. Westermann is a graduate of California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo. A former triathlete, she has volunteered as a mentor, participant and captain for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Team in Training in San Jose. Westermann was selected as the 2006 Henry E. Rauch Doctoral Fellow. She is an avid world traveler and yoga enthusiast.
Wilson Wong (Peru) MBA Cornell University
He has more than 15 years of IT management experience, with special expertise in web site project development. His research interests include health care information systems, corporate instrumental rationality, and e-commerce and computer architecture. Wong has been a faculty member at Bentley since 2001, most recently serving as a senior lecturer in computer information systems. He performed a technical review of the textbook The Architecture of Computer Hardware and Systems Software. Wong holds an MBA from Cornell University. In addition to being a member of the advisory board for the MIT Student Art Association, Wong has a black belt in taekwondo karate and has performed as a cellist with various symphonies and chamber groups. His pottery has been exhibited at the Rhode Island SCAA, the MIT Stratton Center, and the Show of Hands Gallery in Philadelphia.
