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Poole College welcomes 11 new faculty members, announces promotions

Photo of new Poole College faculty and those who advanced to new roles
Poole College welcomed new professors and recognized those who advanced to new roles in fall 2016

The NC State Poole College of Management welcomed 11 members to its full-time faculty this fall. Two of those are in newly funded professorships: one in entrepreneurship and one in supply chain management.

“Together, our new full-time faculty members bring more than 200 years’ experience in teaching, research and business,” said Annette Ranft, Poole College dean and Stephen P. Zelnak Jr Chair. Ranft had also joined the college as its new dean on July 1.

In addition to the new faculty appointments, eight professors were promoted in rank. Following are our new faculty members and promotion announcements, by department.

Department of Accounting

  • Jennifer (Jennie) Dirienzo is an assistant professor of accounting and director of the college’s new online Tax, Technology and Analytics Certificate program. She retired as director from Deloitte Tax LLP where she was a member of the tax practice for over 35 years, working in various industries including, most recently, regulated public utilities and consumer goods. Her tax experience includes tax accounting methods and periods, accounting for income taxes, international taxation, consolidations, and mergers and acquisitions. She has a bachelor’s in accounting from NC State University and is a CPA.
  • Christina Lewellen is an assistant professor of accounting. She received her Ph.D. in accounting from Florida State University College of Business in 2016, and her master’s in accounting from East Carolina University. She is a CPA and previously was an associate auditor with McGladrey in New Bern, N.C. and a tax associate with a local firm in Greenville, NC.  Her areas of expertise include tax and financial accounting and her research interests include international tax, tax havens, financial reporting, and corporate governance.

Department of Business Management

  • Carlton (Carl) Davis joined the faculty as a full-time lecturer in finance, after teaching on a part-time basis at the college since 2006. He has more than 30 years’ experience in the financial services industry, as an investment advisor and related financial services roles. He is a member of the Association for Investment Management & Research and the North Carolina Society of Financial Analysts. He received his MBA from Duke University and his bachelor’s degree from Albion College.
  • Donald (Donnie) Hale, Jr. is a lecturer in business analytics. He will be receiving his Ph.D. in December 2016 from the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. Hale’s areas of expertise include human capital resources, strategy, analytics and management. He previously was a lecturer at the Moore School of Business, and has industry experience in analytics, strategy and consulting.
  • Sebastian Heese is the first faculty member to hold the newly funded Owens Distinguished Professorship of Supply Chain Management. He previously was Dean of EBS Business School in Wiesbaden, Germany, where he also served as Executive Director of the Institute for Supply Chain Management and held the SGL Carbon Endowed Chair of Supply Chain Management. He received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill in 2004.
  • William (Bill) Rand, assistant professor of marketing, examines the use of computational modeling techniques, like agent-based modeling, geographic information systems, social network analysis, natural language processing and machine learning, to help understand and analyze complex systems, such as the diffusion of information, organizational learning, and economic markets. He received his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Michigan in 2005, where he worked on the application of evolutionary computation techniques to dynamic environments. He previously was director of the Center for Complexity in Business at the University of Maryland Robert H. Smith School of Business, and held faculty positions at the UMD’s Institute for Advanced Computational Studies.
  • Jared Smith, assistant professor in finance, focuses his research on corporate finance, especially law and finance, and market and microstructure. He previously was assistant professor of finance at Clemson University, and received his Ph.D. in 2014 from the University of Pittsburgh.

Department of Economics

  • Andy Nowel joined the college’s faculty as a full time lecturer. Nowel has been a member of the Poole College undergraduate staff since 1986, serving most recently as the college’s director of curriculum, scheduling and assessment. He also held prior roles in advising and most recently helped design the curriculum for the college’s new undergraduate Data Analytics Honors Program, and has been a part-time lecturer in economics. He received his master’s in economics from NC State and his bachelor’s in business administration from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.

Department of Management, Innovation and Entrepreneurship

  • Jon Carr is the first to hold the newly funded Jenkins Distinguished Professorship in Entrepreneurship at Poole College. Carr brings nearly 30 years’ experience to his new role, including serving as assistant and associate professor at the M.J. Neely School of Business, Texas Christian University and University of Southern Mississippi. Prior roles also include research scientist, senior research assistant and adjunct faculty at the Mississippi State Center Social Science Research Center. He received his Ph.D. in management from Mississippi State University.
  • Richard Podurgal, lecturer, has more than 25 years’ experience as a senior human resources leader and as a consultant to several global companies.  He has taught as a part-time lecturer at Poole College on the topics of business processes, strategic management and people management.
  • Kevin M. Wright joins Poole College as a full time lecturer, after teaching management of innovation and strategy courses in the college’s Jenkins MBA program and other universities for nearly a decade. He brings extensive industry experiences in a wide variety of roles and responsibilities, with a focus on strategy and innovation and their pragmatic applications. He also has been working with several entrepreneurial initiatives as a mentor and in various support roles for start-up ventures. His areas of expertise include strategic innovation development and implementation, executive leadership, assessment and commercialization of new technologies, and utilization of cross functional teams.

Promotions in the Department of Accounting:

  • Marianne Bradford, from associate to full professor
  • Joe Brazel, Jenkins Distinguished Professorship in Accounting
  • Bradley Lindsey, assistant to associate professor
  • Andrew Schmidt, assistant to associate professor

Promotions in the Department of Business Management:

  • Jesse Ellis, from assistant to associate professor, finance
  • Eda Kemahlioglu Ziya, from assistant to associate, supply chain management
  • Fay Cobb Payton, from associate to full professor, IT

Promotions in the Department of Economics

  • Nora Traum, from assistant to associate professor