Fogelman Features - June 2026
- FCBE Faculty and Staff Awards
- Zabi Rezaee received accolades for paper performance and announced his retirement
- Tracy Cosenza attended Social Media Marketing World/AI Business World conference
- CSOA professors published in India Accounting Review
- Subhash Jha was invited to the editorial board of the Journal of Retailing, secured $600K grant and was published in Journal of Business Research
FCBE Faculty and Staff Awards
Multiple awards were presented at the Spring 2026 Faculty and Staff college-wide meeting in April. Congratulations to all the recipients!
George Johnson Preeminent Publication Award
- Dr. Huigang Liang, Professor, PhD Coordinator, and FedEx Chair of Excellence in MIS | “How Mergers and Acquisitions Increase Data Breaches: A Complexity Perspective” | MIS Quarterly
- Dr. Emma Xu, Assistant Professor of Finance | “Local Labor Markets and Corporate Innovation” | Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis
Competitive Outstanding Paper Award: Theoretical/Conceptual Category 1st Place
- Dr. Susy Jaramillo, Assistant Professor of Marketing | “Wired for Work: Brain Computer Interfaces’ Impact on Frontline Employees’ Well Being” | Journal of Service Management
- Dr. Hui Hao, Assistant Professor of MIS | “Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 25 Years In: Letting a Thousand Flowers Bloom and Keeping the Fences” | Journal of the AIS
Competitive Outstanding Paper Award: Empirical Category 1st Place
- Dr. Wendy Bedwell-Torres, Associate Professor of Teaching, MGMT and MSCM, and Director of Executive Education Programs| “Initial Development of Perceptions of Ability and Intent Factors of (Un)Trustworthiness in Short Term Teams” | Journal of Organizational Behavior
Competitive Outstanding Paper Award: Empirical Category 2nd Place
- Dr. Joanna Golden, Associate Professor of Accounting | “Capitalization of Operating Leases and the Cost of Bank Loans” | Journal of Corporate Finance
Faculty Teaching and Research Mentoring Award: Engaged Creative Teaching Excellence Award
- Dr. Tracy Cosenza, Associate Professor of Teaching, MSCM (Undergraduate)
- Dr. Scott Vann, Assistant Professor of Teaching, MIS (Graduate)
Faculty Teaching and Research Mentoring Award: Teaching Beyond the Classroom Award
- Dr. Kathy Tuberville, Associate Professor of Teaching, MGMT and Director of Fogelman Leaders in Action
- Dr. Subhash Jha, Associate Professor of Marketing
Faculty Teaching and Research Mentoring Award: Research Mentoring Award
- Dr. Velma Zahirovic-Herbert, Professor of Finance and Martha and Robert Fogelman Family Chair in Sustainable Real Estate
Outstanding PhD Student Teaching Award
- Carrie (Qiuting) Gui, PhD Candidate in Business Administration - Accounting Concentration
- David Huberdeau-Reid, PhD student in Business Administration - Finance Concentration
- Favour Olarewaju, PhD student in Business Administration - Economics Concentration
- Also named the recipient of the Outstanding Economics Graduate Student Award.
2026 University of Memphis Award for Distinguished Research in the Social Sciences, Business & Law
- Dr. Pankaj (PK) Jain, Professor and Department Chair of Finance
George Johnson Research Fellowship
- Dr. Ji Hae You, Associate Professor, Management
- Dr. Han Yu, Assistant Professor, Economics
George Johnson Teaching Fellowship
- David Gagnon, Assistant Professor of Teaching, Marketing and Supply Chain Management
- Dr. Kathy Tuberville, Associate Professor of Teaching, MGMT and Director of Fogelman Leaders in Action
George Johnson Staff Awards
- Ashley Rose, Senior Manager of Operations and Facilities
- Kim Womack, Administration Associate, MIS and MSCM
Dean’s Staff Awards
- Tarranda Silas, Administrative Associate II
- Donna LaRiviere, Internship and Program Coordinator, CPCD
- Mark Alpuente, Graduation Analyst and College Academic Advisor II, USSO
Zabi Rezaee received accolades for paper performance and announced his retirement
Dr. Zabihollah (Zabi) Rezaee, Thompson-Hill Chair of Excellence and professor in the Crews School of Accountancy, retired from Fogelman College on May 31. He has accepted a Visiting Professor appointment at Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary.
“I look forward to continued collaboration with colleagues, students, universities and professional organizations around the world,” said Zabi. “And hope to contribute to the development of similar interdisciplinary AI, corporate governance and sustainability centers globally.”
Additionally, his paper titled “The Relative Importance of ESG Pillars: A Two‐Step Machine Learning and Analytical Framework” has been recognized as one of the most widely read Wiley papers and was selected as a Top Viewed Article in the Sustainable Development Journal. He coauthored this piece with Bita Mashayekhi, Kaveh Asiaei, Milad Samavat, Amin Jahangard and Saeid Homayoun.
This study develops a novel two-step machine learning and analytical framework to evaluate non-financial environmental, social, and governance (ESG) sustainability key performance indicators (KPIs) and to conduct cluster analysis for determining the relative importance of ESG pillars. Using the MEREC (Method based on the Removal Effects of Criteria) approach and K-means cluster analysis with ASSET4 ESG data from 2002–2017, we examine the objective weighting of ESG pillars across different sectors and identify peer-group similarities among firms. Their findings suggest that overall ESG performance is viewed as the most critical sustainability pillar across sectors, although the relative importance of ESG dimensions varies. Specifically, the social (SOC) dimension ranks highest, followed by the economic (ECN), environmental (ENV) and corporate governance (CGV) dimensions. The study offers important policy, practice and research implications as policymakers, sustainability standard setters, socially responsible investors, businesses and accounting professionals continue to focus on ESG performance, risk and disclosure.
Dr. Zabihollah (Zabi) RezaeeTracy Cosenza attended Social Media Marketing World/AI Business World conference
Dr. Tracy Cosenza, associate professor of Teaching in the Department of Marketing, recently attended the Social Media Marketing World/AI Business conference in Anaheim, California. The conference is the industry’s largest training conference with a dedicated focus on AI and marketing, organic social, paid social and social media strategy. Insights from workshops, keynotes and sessions will support the marketing department’s integration of AI across the curriculum.
CSOA professors published in India Accounting Review
Drs. Ken Lambert, Jim Lukawitz and Zabihollah (Zabi) Rezaee, faculty members in the Crews School of Accountancy, recently had a coauthored paper accepted for publication in the June issue of the India Accounting Review. It is titled “Business Sustainability Education: Global Trends in Demand, Supply, and Curricular.” They collaborated on this research with former PhD student Carrie Gui.
Their study examines how business sustainability education is being incorporated into business and accounting curricula by analyzing:
- the growing demand for sustainability related competencies,
- the global availability of sustainability education offered by academic institutions,
- the instructional methods used to integrate sustainability topics into coursework, and
- the alignment between the demand for and supply of sustainability-focused education.
Using a sample of 311 business colleges and accounting schools worldwide, the authors
document increasing interest in sustainability education, broader inclusion of key
sustainability topics within business and accounting programs and a positive relationship
between market demand and academic supply. The paper offers valuable insights into
how sustainability is being embedded into curricula and provides guidance for administrators
seeking to develop or strengthen sustainability-oriented academic programs.
Subhash Jha was invited to the editorial board of the Journal of Retailing, secured $600K grant and was published in Journal of Business Research
Dr. Subhash Jha, associate professor of Marketing and George Johnson Research Fellow, was appointed to the Editorial Review Board of the Journal of Retailing for the 2026–2029 term. His co-authored article with former doctoral student Eric Narcum was published in the Journal of Business Research. He also secured a $600K grant as Co-PI from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration via the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security. Additionally, he helped organize a West Tennessee Task Force meeting on May 14 at the FedEx Institute of Technology, where law enforcement observed traffic safety research activities in the lab.
Dr. Subhash Jha