Bauer College Welcomes 11 New Faculty Members
New Faculty Include Researchers, Longtime Business Professionals
Published on August 13, 2018
Bauer College has added 11 new faculty members to its ranks across four departments, with experts in sectors including digital marketing and social media, corporate finance, real estate, technology project management and leadership.
Bauer College is adding 11 new faculty members to its ranks this fall. The cohort includes longtime business professionals as well as leading academic scholars with research interests ranging from digital marketing to mergers and acquisitions.
Decision & Information Sciences
Richard Skinner will serve as a lecturer in the Department of Decision & Information Sciences. Skinner earned a Ph.D. in management information systems from Bauer and is a former vice president with Equity Business Technology Services. His research interests include technology project management excellence, IS project retrospective success, the Delphi method and meta-analysis/qualitative synthesis. Skinner received the Dean’s Award for Academic Excellence in 2018 and the University of Houston Presidential Fellowship for 2013 and 2014. He received an executive MBA from Henley Business School, University of Reading, in 2013.
Patrick Boren joins the department as an adjunct faculty member. Boren, a graduate of the University of Houston who studied management information systems at Bauer, is certified in Project Management and Open Group Architecture Framework and is principal of TexasPGB, Inc. Boren has developed innovative technology solutions for BP Global Remediation Management, Prime ITS, Splashtown Houston and others.
Finance
Paola Pederzoli, assistant professor of finance, earned her Ph.D. from the Swiss Finance Institute, University of Geneva. Pederzoli has undergraduate and master’s degrees in mathematics from the University of Pavia, Italy. She was a visiting scholar at the London School of Economics and Queen Mary University of London in 2017. Her research interests include asset pricing, derivatives, market microstructure and financial econometrics. A working paper, “Crash Risk in Individual Stocks,” won SFI’s Best Paper Doctoral award.
Rajkamal Vasu will serve as an assistant professor in the Department of Finance. He earned a master’s degree and Ph.D., both in finance, from the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. Vasu also received an MBA in finance from the Indian Institute of Management, and a B. Tech degree in electrical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology. His research interests include corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, mechanism design, contract theory, financial history and economics of innovation. Vasu has several working papers and presented at the Trans-Atlantic Doctoral Conference, London Business School, in 2017.
Larry Wright, an independent real estate consultant, will serve as adjunct faculty. A long-time real estate appraiser, teacher, expert witness and consultant, Wright has served on numerous panels and committees for the Appraisal Institute National Association and Appraisal Institute Houston Association. He chaired the AIHA’s Education Committee from 2015 to 2018 and has extensive experience in developing and teaching seminars and classes related to real estate transactions.
Donald Quigley is vice president of investment and development at Midway Companies and joins Bauer College as an adjunct faculty member. Quigley manages high-profile portfolios including CITYCENTRE retail, office and hotels, Memorial Green and many others. He has managed recapitalization and disposition of approximately $175M of investments and is team lead on acquisition of new properties and potential development opportunities at Midway. Quigley earned an MBA from Bauer College with a Graduate Real Estate Program Certificate in 2014, and B.A. in history from Texas A&M University.
Acho Azuike, Chief Operating Officer and Managing Director of DC Partners, a real estate development and investment firm, will also join Bauer as adjunct faculty. Azuike’s business has helped facilitate foreign and domestic investment in Texas since its establishment in 2010. He previously worked for Prisma Properties and Midway Companies. He received an MBA from Rice University and a B.A. in economics from the University of Texas.
Alexander Lara, former Executive Director of Global Trade for JPMorgan Chase, will teach credit analysis and commercial banking as a professor of practice at Bauer. Lara has expertise in trade finance, supply chain finance, credit analysis and credit administration, international treasury and general management. Lara received a master’s degree in International Business Administration from U.S. International University, San Diego and a B. S. from Universidad International de Mexico.
Management
Mark Esselman joins Bauer as an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Management. Esselman is senior vice president, Global Human Resources/Chief Human Resources Officer at Buckeye Partners, L.P., and was previously vice president for Human Resources and Payroll at FleetPride, Inc. He has held executive roles at Caprock Communications, Pennzoil-Quaker State Company, Compucom Systems and others. He received a master’s degree in industrial relations and a BBA in management from the University of Wisconsin.
Marketing & Entrepreneurship
Craig McAndrews, former Chief Strategy Officer for Mattress Firm, has joined the Bauer Department of Marketing & Entrepreneurship as a professor of practice. McAndrews previously was vice president, Southwest Region, for Simmons-Serta Co., and co-founded a consumer research and education firm. He has extensive experience in sales leadership and vendor relations and received a BBA from Stephen F. Austin State University.
Shijie Lu, a former assistant professor of marketing at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, joins Bauer as assistant professor. Lu received his Ph.D. in marketing and a master’s degree in economics from the University of Southern California. He earned undergraduate degrees in mathematics and economics from Peking University. Lu’s research interests include digital marketing, online advertising, competition and social media. He has published research in leading journals and is an ad hoc reviewer for Journal of Marketing Research, Management Science, Production and Operations Management, Multiagent and Grid Systems, and Information Processing and Management.