Fourteen New Faculty Members Join Smeal

UNIVERSITY PARK, PA (September 11, 2008) – Penn State's Smeal College of Business welcomes the following new faculty members to the college for the 2008-2009 academic year:

Lisa Bolton, Associate Professor of Marketing
Lisa Bolton joins Smeal from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania where she served as assistant professor of marketing since 2000. Her research focuses on judgment and decision-making by managers and consumers, with substantive interests in new products, pricing, risk perceptions, and consumer spending and finances.

Bolton holds a bachelor's degree from the Royal Military College of Canada, a master's degree from the University of Toronto, and a Ph.D. from the University of Florida.

Franklin Carter, William A. Donan Clinical Professor of Marketing
Franklin Carter comes to Smeal from Lehigh University where he served on the faculty since 2004 as the James P. Kane Faculty Fellow and assistant professor of marketing. He is also adjunct professor of pharmaceutical marketing at the Haub School of Business at Saint Joseph's University. Carter is an expert and frequent speaker on sales strategy and the pharmaceutical industry, specifically pharmaceutical marketing.

He holds an M.B.A. from Wharton and a bachelor's degree, master's degree, and Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University.

Christopher Craighead, Assistant Professor of Supply Chain Management
Christopher Craighead joins Smeal from Auburn University where he served on the faculty since 2003, most recently as associate professor. He has also served on the faculties of the University of North Carolina-Charlotte and the University of Texas-Arlington. His primary research interest is in the area of strategic sourcing/supply management and he currently teaches classes in strategic procurement.

Craighead holds a bachelor's degree and a master's degree from East Tennessee State University and a Ph.D. from Clemson University.

Ronald Gebhardtsbauer, Faculty-in-Charge of the Actuarial Science Program
Ronald Gebhardtsbauer joins the Smeal faculty with more than 30 years of experience in actuarial science, most recently with the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance where he was senior benefits adviser. Prior to his service with Congress, Gebhardtsbauer spent nearly 12 years as senior pension fellow with the American Academy of Actuaries. He also spent eight years as the chief actuary for the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.

He holds a bachelor's degree from Penn State and a master's degree from Northeastern University.

Stephen Humphrey, Assistant Professor of Management
Stephen Humphrey comes to Smeal from Florida State University where he served as assistant professor since 2004. His teaching and research interests are in organizational behavior and human resources management. Humphrey's research focuses on the structure of work, with a primary focus on teamwork and the drivers of team success. In addition, he studies fairness perceptions in negotiation contexts and decision-making errors.

Humphrey holds a bachelor's degree from James Madison University and a Ph.D. from Michigan State University.

Peter Iliev, Assistant Professor of Finance
Peter Iliev joins Smeal from Brown University, where he recently completed his Ph.D. in Economics. He has done research on the effect of Sarbanes-Oxley on firms, and attention limits and target leverage in firms. He is currently teaching courses on financial markets and institutions.

In addition to his Ph.D., Iliev holds a bachelor's degree from Sofia University in Bulgaria and master's degrees from Brown and the Central European University in Hungary.

Alok Kumar, Assistant Professor of Marketing
Alok Kumar comes to Smeal from the University of Wisconsin where he earned his Ph.D. in Marketing. His primary research and teaching interests are supply chain relationships, distribution systems, and marketing strategy. Kumar has taught courses on marketing channels, marketing strategy, and marketing management at the University of Wisconsin.

In addition to his Ph.D., Kumar holds a bachelor's degree from the Indian School of Mines and an M.B.A. from the Indian Institute of Management.

Lisa Mensinger, Instructor in Supply Chain and Information Systems
Lisa Mensinger joins Smeal from Penn State Altoona, where she was a part-time faculty member responsible for the development and presentation of course material for computer science classes. She has also recently served as an instructor with Penn State Continuing Education and State College Area Community Education. She also has several years of experience in human resources.

Mensinger holds a bachelor's degree from Indiana University and an M.B.A. from Frostburg State University.

Vilmos Misangyi, Assistant Professor of Management
Vilmos Misangyi comes to Smeal from the Lerner College of Business and Economics at the University of Delaware where he served since 2002 as an assistant professor. His research interests focus on CEO charisma, managerial discretion, and corruption. He currently teaches courses on corporate strategy and strategic management.

Misangyi holds a bachelor's degree from Michigan State University and a Ph.D. from the University of Florida.

Ralph Sees, Instructor in Supply Chain and Information Systems
A retired U.S. Army Colonel, Ralph Sees comes to Smeal with more than 27 years of experience in medical supply chain management and health care operations within the Department of Defense. He most recently worked for a defense contractor as the principal consultant assisting in the ongoing transition of an SAP-based Enterprise Resource Planning software application from the U.S. Army Medical Department to the Department of Defense, Health Affairs.

Sees holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Notre Dame, a master's degree from Syracuse University, and a Ph.D. from Smeal.

Rajeev Sooreea, Clinical Assistant Professor of International Business
Rajeev Sooreea joins Smeal from Penn State Altoona where he served as assistant professor of economics since 2004. He has also worked at the W. K. Kellogg Foundation in Michigan under the chief investment officer and vice president of finance. Sooreea's academic interests focus on foreign markets entry strategy, foreign direct investment, monetary policy and stock markets, financial integration, and time series modeling.

He holds a bachelor's degree from Bombay University in India, a master's degree from Leeds University Business School in the U.K., and a master's degree and a Ph.D. from Western Michigan University. In addition, he has graduate professional training in international business and economics from Harvard University.

Sandra Transchel, Assistant Professor of Supply Chain Management
Sandra Transchel joins Smeal from the University of Mannheim in Germany where she recently completed her Ph.D. Her current research interest focuses on the integration of logistics and marketing. In particular, she is interested in analyzing problems where pricing decisions are considered jointly with logistics decisions in retail or manufacturing environments.

In addition to her Ph.D., she holds a master's degree from the Otto-von-Guericke University in Germany.

Joel Vanden, Associate Professor of Finance
Joel Vanden comes to Smeal from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College where he served for nine years as associate professor of finance. His research is focused on the area of asset pricing. Currently, he is interested in how imperfect competition affects mutual fund fees and how diversification impacts optimal corporate capital structures.

Vanden holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois, an M.B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Jared Williams, Assistant Professor of Finance
Jared Williams joins Smeal from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, from where he will complete his Ph.D. in Finance this year. He has served as a research consultant with the Chicago Board of Trade and Morgan Stanley. Williams' research interests focus on behavioral asset pricing, financial and economic forecasting, and market anomalies.

In addition to his Ph.D., he holds a bachelor's degree from Hendrix College.