Six new faculty members across four departments will join the Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin–Madison this fall, bringing research expertise and teaching excellence in the areas of finance, operations and information management, accounting and information systems, and management and human resources.
“We are excited to welcome our newest class of faculty recruits to WSB,” says Nicholas Petruzzi, senior associate dean for faculty and staff and the Michael E. Lehman Distinguished Chair in Business in the Department of Operations and Information Management. “Through their research, teaching, and outreach, these six thought leaders, all of whom are pushing the state of the art in their respective fields, will individually and collectively enhance the depth and scope of WSB’s strong reputation for academic excellence and dedicated commitment to the Wisconsin Idea.”
The new faculty members are:
Jason Allen
Associate Professor of Finance, Investment, and Banking
Jason Allen received his PhD from Queen’s University in Ontario and worked at the Bank of Canada as a financial economist, developing critical national policy in areas such as mortgage finance, housing affordability, bank resolution, and debt management—all real-world experience he will share with students when he teaches the Advanced Topics in Finance seminar this fall and Financial Markets, Institutions, and Economic Activity in the spring.
His research examines pricing, competition, and the role of frictions in credit markets as well as financial markets. It also aims to address issues around bank fragility and resolution. Allen credits a now-retired former colleague, Walter Engert, for his evolution as an economist and for an understanding of the crucial role researchers play in advancing public policy.
“Policymakers have many competing pressures, are bombarded with advice (good and bad), and face a limited amount of time to make decisions,” Allen says. “A good researcher is one who builds expertise and leverages it to deliver advice in simple terms. I hope to share this with all my students—to be influential, you need to have developed sufficient expertise to provide advice and you must be able to communicate that advice effectively. The corollary is that your advice, even if great, will often be dismissed. Don’t despair!”
Kaitlin Daniels
Assistant Professor of Operations and Information Management
“I study new ‘gig-economy’ marketplaces for labor, like those created by the platforms like Uber,” says new OIM faculty member Kaitlin Daniels. “I use a mix of analytical and empirical tools to examine the optimal design of incentives in this setting and their implications for other market participants, such as workers and consumers.”
With the gig-economy marketplace constantly in flux, what does she consider to be one of the most challenging and exciting questions in her field? “Technology allows for delegation of more and more decisions, and workers want flexibility,” says Daniels. “How does that change the way services are provided?”
Daniels joins WSB after serving as an assistant professor at the Olin Business School of Washington University in St. Louis. She holds a BSc in mathematics from Duke University and a PhD in operations management from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Come fall, Daniels will be teaching Operations and Supply Chain Management. “In microeconomics, students learn that prices adjust so that supply equals demand,” she says. “But there is a lot of hard work and careful decision-making required to deliver the supply the market demands.” Her course will cover strategies for accomplishing such a difficult task including tools to determine product production and capacity, evaluating suppliers, and mitigating supply chain disruptions.
Jinan Lin
Assistant Professor of Operations and Information Management
Jinan Lin’s research looks at strategies of user growth and regulation policies on multi-sided marketplaces within digital platforms and the sharing economy.
Within his field of operations and information management, “I’m intrigued by the possibility of coordinating users on digital marketplaces with various incentives and interests,” says Lin. “For instance, what should platforms do to mitigate disintermediation or deter counterfeiting products? What are the effective ways to increase market thickness and design their product lines?”
Lin earned his MPhil in economics at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and his PhD in Information Systems from the Paul Merage School of Business at University of California, Irvine. Prior to joining UW–Madison, he conducted research with Microsoft, Amazon, DiDi Labs, and Nokia Bell Labs.
Lin will be teaching Data Technology for Business Analytics for WSB’s MS in business analytics students, helping them to learn data management with real-world applications. He also sees his work as aligning with the Wisconsin Idea.
“I particularly value downstream business and societal impacts,” says Lin. “Through educating next-generation business leaders and working closely with Wisconsin business, I aim to extend my impacts beyond the classroom.”
Min-Seok Pang
Professor of Operations and Information Management
“I am interested in how data breaches and growing cybersecurity threats reshape the ways firms operate and compete with each other,” says Min-Seok Pang, whose avenues of research include cybersecurity management, strategic management of information technologies, and technology-enabled public policies.
Pang is the recipient of numerous awards including the Association for Information Systems’ Best Information Systems Publication Award, the Information Systems Research Best Published Paper Award, the INFORMS ISS Sandra Slaughter Early Career Award, the Outstanding Associate Editor of the Year Award from Management Information Systems Quarterly, and the Management Information Systems Full-Time Teacher of the Year Award from Temple University.
His research is frequently featured in media outlets such as Computerworld, Federal Computer Week, and TechCrunch and he has authored several op eds including “Your Personal Data Has Been Stolen. Will It Really Cost You Anything?” for publications like The Wall Street Journal.
Prior to WSB, Pang was a faculty member at Temple University and George Mason University. He received his BS in industrial engineering and an MS in management from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. He holds a PhD in business administration from the University of Michigan.
Shotaro Yamaguchi
Assistant Professor of Management and Human Resources
Shotaro Yamaguchi credits his undergraduate advisor with setting him on the professional path he’s traveling today.
“The research experience under his supervision motivated me to pursue graduate studies,” Yamaguchi says. “The most valuable lesson I learned from him is that science has no borders; you can apply the knowledge gained at university wherever you go and in whatever you do.”
Yamaguchi hopes to apply that knowledge now that he’s at WSB. His key areas of research include interfirm and intrafirm employee mobility, diversification, and innovation, as well as firms’ isolating mechanisms in the form of post-employment restrictive covenants such as non-compete agreements.
“One of my core projects focuses on how skilled human capital is developed and allocated in emerging economies using historical data,” says Yamaguchi. “I believe the insights drawn from my study will provide significant political implications for present emerging economies aiming to develop nascent industries and foster innovation.”
Yamaguchi looks forward to teaching Strategic Management, aiming to give students an analytical framework and the capacity to make well-grounded and insightful recommendations as to how a business is or should be competing.
Yamaguchi received his PhD in strategic management and entrepreneurship from the University of Maryland, College Park’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. He holds a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in commerce and management from Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo.
Dain Donelson
David J. Lesar Professor; Professor of Accounting and Information Systems
Prior to arriving at WSB, Dain Donelson was the Henry B. Tippie Excellence Chair in Accounting, a professor of accounting at the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business, and a professor (by courtesy) of law at the university’s College of Law.
His research focuses on shareholder litigation, financial reporting fraud, corporate law and governance, regulation, and accounting standards. In 2023, he was a recipient of the Deloitte Foundation Wildman Medal Award.
One of the most compelling aspects of accounting research is “how rules and economics interact to affect financial reporting decisions,” Donelson says. In his teaching—he’ll be teaching Financial Reporting I and Financial Accounting at WSB—“my work demonstrates that incentives often cause poor decisions. There is no rule that can overcome this; it is up to the individual. I let students know that.”
Donelson received his PhD in accountancy from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and his JD from Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law.