FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DATE: October 10, 2007

The 2007-2008 academic year at the Michael G. Foster School of Business kicked off with five outstanding new faculty members. The new professors join the current Foster School faculty that has already built a leading-edge research reputation. Throughout the various academic departments, the School consistently ranks among the top 20 U.S. business schools, both public and private, for research productivity.

Dean Jim Jiambalvo is thrilled by the incoming faculty hires. "This is the most successful recruiting year we've had in recent memory," Dean Jiambalvo said. "These outstanding new faculty are all young, all with star potential and they bring an exciting mix of proven scholarship, teaching excellence and practical experience. They epitomize the kind of faculty we want to recruit and retain at the Foster School of Business."

MORELA HERNANDEZ
Assistant Professor, Management & Organization

PhD, Duke University, 2007
BA, Rice University, 2001

Hernandez joins the Foster School after recently receiving her PhD at Duke University. She has taught several courses on leadership and has been a leadership development coach for senior executives in the executive education programs at Duke and the London Business School since 2002.  Prior to teaching, she worked at Enron in Houston, Texas, as a financial analyst between 1999-2001.  Hernandez is currently researching the role leaders play in instilling a sense of responsibility in others.  She is also studying how ethnicity, cultural origin, and gender influence organizational decision making. Recent research has appeared in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology and Personnel Psychology.

ROBERT PALMATIER
Assistant Professor of Marketing

PhD, University of Missouri, 2004
MBA, Georgia State University, 1989
MSEE, Georgia Institute of Technology, 1984
BSEE, Georgia Institute of Technology, 1983

Palmatier joins the Foster School after teaching at the University of Cincinnati and Northwestern University. He also brings practical experience as former chairman of the National Academy of Sciences’ innovation committee in 2005, member of NASA’s Computing, Information and Communications Advisory Group in 2004, president and COO for C&K Components, Inc. in 2001, general manager for Raychem/Tyco Corporation in 1995 and U.S. Navy lieutenant between 1984-1990. His research interests include relationship marketing theory and strategy emphasizing multi-channel customer relationships in business-to-business and retail markets.  Recent research has appeared in Marketing Science and the Journal of Marketing Research. 

LISA M. SEDOR
Assistant Professor of Accounting

PhD, University of Washington, 2001
BSBA, University of Nevada, 1988
CPA (Nevada), 1990

Sedor joins the Foster School from the accounting faculty at the University of Notre Dame where she taught auditing since 2001.  Prior to earning her PhD at the University of Washington, Sedor managed the financial accounting practice of O'Bannon Dunn & Small from 1992-1997 and worked as a senior auditor at Deloitte & Touche from 1988-1992.  Her research interests include cognitive psychology applied in financial reporting and disclosure contexts.  Her current research addresses the influence of voluntary disclosures on market participants' future-earnings expectations.  Recent research has appeared in Contemporary Accounting Research and The Accounting Review.

SONALI K. SHAH
Assistant Professor, Management & Organization

PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003
BSE, University of Pennsylvania, Engineering 1996
BSE, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School of Business, 1996

Shah joins the Foster School after teaching at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 2003-2007. Prior to academia, she was an associate at McKinsey & Co.,  an investment banking analyst for Morgan Stanley & Co., and has served as an international social services volunteer and international humanitarian law instructor for the American Red Cross from 1998 to the present. Her research examines the social structures that support innovation and entrepreneurship.  She received the 2006 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Best Paper Prize for her work on open source software development. Recent research has appeared in Management Science and the Journal of Management Studies.

MARK T. SOLIMAN
Associate Professor of Accounting

PhD, University of Michigan, 2003
MS, Seattle University, 1999
BS, California State Polytechnic University, 1993
CPA (California), 1995