Ross just hired the largest group of women professors in a decade

August 18, 2017


Julia Lee joins the core faculty at the Center for Positive Organizations.

Michigan Ross welcomes six new tenure and tenure-track faculty to campus this year, including a PhD alumnus and a former senior economist from the Council of Economic Advisers. 

Five of the six new professors are women, underscoring the school’s efforts to retain a faculty that is not only centered on excellence but also one that better reflects the diversity of our community. This represents the largest group of women to fill tenure and tenure-track positions in the last ten years. Over the last five years, Ross has hired men and women in equal numbers.

“By hiring five women as professors we’re demonstrating our commitment to cultivating a diverse and inclusive community, and following through on our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) strategic plan,” said Taryn Petryk, director of Diversity and Inclusion at Michigan Ross.

​Charleen Case joins the management and organizations faculty as assistant professor. Case’s research takes an evolutionary approach to the study of social hierarchy, leadership, and coalition behavior. Her work focuses on the fundamental motives underlying the way people behave in social hierarchies and coalitions, and examines the downstream behavioral consequences of those motives. Case received her PhD in social psychology from Florida State University and was a pre-doctoral research fellow at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Julia Lee joins the management and organizations faculty as assistant professor. She was previously a 2015-2017 post-doctoral fellow at Ross. Lee’s research relates to capitalizing on employee social networks to create positive psychological, physiological, and organizational outcomes. She has also examined the antecedents and consequences of engaging in ethically questionable behavior. Lee received her PhD in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School.

​Shima Nassiri joins the technology and operations faculty as assistant professor. Nassiri’s research interests involve designing coordination mechanisms in supply chain and their applications in healthcare and public health policy using game theory and optimization techniques. She also studies the behavioral aspects of healthcare operations using econometrics and data-driven methods. Nassiri is particularly interested in studying healthcare policies that aim to reduce expenditures by moving toward performance-based care. Nassiri received her PhD from the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington.

​Nirupama Rao joins the business economics and public policy faculty as assistant professor. Rao was formerly assistant professor of economics and public policy at New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service. Her research focuses on the economic effects of fiscal policy, the impact of policy on firm production, investment, pricing decisions, and individual consumption. She’s studied the effects of excise taxes on oil production, and the effectiveness of tax credits for R&D. Rao served as a senior economist on the Council of Economic Advisers and received her PhD in economics from MIT.

John Silberholz joins the technology and operations faculty as assistant professor. His research interest is healthcare analytics, with a current focus on cancer screening and treatment. He has co-authored papers on using machine learning to predict clinical trial outcomes, and using mathematical models for optimal decisions in prostate cancer screening. Silberholz received his PhD from MIT and was a lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management.

Gwen Yu joins the accounting faculty as associate professor. She was previously associate professor of business administration in the accounting and management unit at Harvard Business School and received her PhD from Ross in 2010. Yu’s research centers on information frictions in the global economy. She investigates the cross-border frictions that cause differences in information quality and how those differences have real economic effects. Yu also dissects the underlying drivers of these cross-border information frictions. Her work has been published in numerous academic and practitioner journals and cited and discussed in the business and financial press. Yu is on the editorial board of The Accounting Review.

In addition to tenure and tenure-track professors, the following intermittent lecturers join the faculty:

Brad Farnsworth joins the strategy faculty. He is vice president of the American Council on Education’s Center for Internationalization and Global Engagement. Farnsworth also was an adjunct lecturer and director of the Center for International Business Education at Michigan Ross.

Alison Kruger joins the business administration faculty. Her work and interests center on collaborative problem-solving, and she has organized national strategy sessions on public health, transportation innovation, and climate. At Ross, she facilitates stakeholder engagement in social impact. Kruger holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management.

Greg Lewis joins the business administration faculty. He was a partner and leader of McKinsey & Co.’s healthcare systems and services practice, and its public sector practice. A 2001 Ross MBA alumnus, he was also global dean of faculty for all of McKinsey’s learning and development programs.

Vijay Pandiarajan joins the technology and operations faculty. He is vice president and CIO, digital transformation practice, at ArborSpot. He also held senior leadership positions at Verizon Wireless, Whirlpool, and Accenture. Pandiarajan holds a PhD in industrial engineering from West Virginia University. He is a MIT Sloan Fellow with an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management. Pandiarajan has been published in several journals.

Zach Sheinberg joins the finance faculty. He is the managing director of HB Capital Group, a real estate investment company based in Miami. Prior to HB, he was vice president at New York-based developer The Witkoff Group. Sheinberg earned his law degree from U-M and has published a novel, The Nominee.

Burcu Tasoluk joins the marketing faculty. She’s a visiting research scholar at Ross and is scheduled to teach in Michigan State University’s Executive MBA Program. She earned her PhD from Michigan State and has been published in numerous journals. Burcu also has industry experience at Procter & Gamble.


This article was originally published in the Ross News Blog