The PhD Project

The PhD Project is a diversity effort that was founded in 1994 by KPMG. The mission of this project is to increase diversity in American businesses by increasing the diversity of business school faculty. The PhD Project connects African-American, Hispanic-American, and Native American professionals with PhD programs in business and provides a system of networking and peer support. The following graduates participated in the PhD Project, and either earned their PhD at The Ohio State University, are PhD Project graduates currently on the faculty at Fisher College of Business, or both. Read more about the PhD Project.

Fisher College of Business Graduates of the PhD Project

• Dr. Anastasia Bailey received her PhD in International Business from the Fisher College of Buisness at The Ohio State University. She is currently an assistant professor at Rutgers University. Her research interests lie at the intersection of International Business and Entrepreneurship. She is particularly interested in how the local and cross-border knowledge flows (e.g. of social and human capital) through migrant networks impact entrepreneurial activities and how institutional characteristics (e.g. culture and institutional voids) affect the behavior of entrepreneurial firms.
   
• Dr. Charles Stevens received his PhD in International Business from the Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University. He is now a member of the faculty at Lehigh University. Prior to joining Lehigh's faculty, Dr. Stevens served as an assistant professor at the College of Business, University of Wyoming. His reasearch interests include global strategy, political risk, liabilty of foreignness, and East Asian business and management issues.
   
• Dr. Boyce Watkins received his PhD in Finance from the Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University. He is now a member of the Finance faculty and a Scholar in Residence in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Syracuse University. Dr. Watkins has become a nationally recognized advocate and expert on issues relating to race and society. In addition to teaching and publishing articles and books on finance-related topics, he is a regular interviewee on CNN and other media outlets. He is also the author of several books, including “What if George Bush were a Black Man?” “Financial Lovemaking 101: Merging Assets with Your Partner in Ways that Feel Good,” “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about College,” and “Black American Money: How Black Power Can Thrive in a Capitalist Society.”
   
• Dr. Angela Tidwell received her B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Florida A&M University, MBA from Washington University, and PhD in Supply Chain Management from Fisher College of Business. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Supply Chain Management at Florida A&M University.
   
• Dr. Angelisa Gillyard received her B.S. in Mathematics from Spelman College, MBA from Georgia Tech, and PhD from Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University. Her research centers on supply chain, logistics and manufacturing strategies. She has published articles on supplier relationships in the supply chain and the career patterns of women in logistics. Dr. Gillyard joined Howard University in 2009 as an Assistant Professor of Supply Chain Management. Prior to going to Howard University she held faculty positions at the University of Maryland and George Mason University, and worked for NASA, FedEx, and Alltell Information Services. Now, she is a director/choreographer for numerous theater companies and venues and a freelance photographer throughout the Washington D.C. Metro Area.
   
• Dr. Yancy Edwards received his PhD in Business Administration from Fisher College of Business. His research involves building models that are more insightful and predictive of consumer behavior. Professor Yancy Edwards is currently an Associate Professor of Marketing at Sogang University in South Korea. Prior to going to Sogang University, he worked at the University of South Florida and Saint Leo University.
   
• Dr. Patrick Jeffers received his M.S. in Transportation Planning and Engineering from Polytechnic Institute of New York University, MBA from Baruch College, CUNY, and PhD in Management Information Systems from Fisher College of Business. He is currently a Business Analytics Program Advisor for Manhattan College. Professor Jeffers’ research examines the role of information systems in supply chain and logistics.
•  

Faculty Diversity at Fisher College of Business

• Dr. W.C. Benton, Jr. is the Edwin D. Dodd Professor of Management and Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management at Fisher. He teaches courses in the business of health care to undergraduates, MBAs and doctoral candidates and along with courses in purchasing/supply management, manufacturing planning and control, operations analysis, and facility design.
   
• Dr. Justin Birru received a PhD in Finance from NYU Stern School of Business. He is currently an Assistant Professor. His research interests include behavioral finance and empirical asset pricing. Dr. Birru teaches Behavioral Finance in both the undergraduate and MBA programs at Fisher.
   
• Dr. Vince Castillo received his PhD in Supply Chain Management from the University of Tennessee. He also has an MBA in Supply Chain and Finance and a BS in Civil Engineering. He is currently a member of the Department of Marketing & Logistics at Fisher College of Business. Dr. Castillo is an InFACT Fellow and is affiliated with the PhD project as a member of the Management Doctoral Student Association.
   
• Dr. Rafael Corredoira received his PhD in Strategy and International Management from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Before embarking on his doctoral studies, he completed an MBA at Drexel University. He has 10 years of business experience at Compañía Bão, the largest and oldest household product firm in Uruguay. Dr. Corredoira is an assistant professor in the Department of Management and Human Resources. His research focuses on embedded exploration: how networks that originate from social ties, market dynamics, and institutional arrangements constrain and enable firms’ entrepreneurial search for innovative solutions.
   
• Dr. Tracy Dumas received her B.S. in Human Development and Social Policy from Northwestern University, M.S. in Industrial Relations from Loyola University of Chicago, and PhD in Organization and Management from Northwestern University. She currently is an Assistant Professor of Management and Human Resources at the Fisher College of Business. Dumas’ research addresses the interface between employees’ personal and professional lives with a focus on understanding how management practices can help employees to excel at work while also engaging meaningfully in their communities. Prior to entering academia, Dumas managed client projects for a Chicago-based consulting and research firm specializing in work force issues.
   
• Dr. Terry Esper is an Associate Professor of Logistics at Fisher College of Business. He previously served as the Oren Harris Endowed Chair of Logistics and Associate Professor of Supply Chan Management at University of Arkansas and University of Tennessee. He has published many articles on strategic supply chain management concepts and supply chain relationships in leading academic journals.
   
• Dr. Shannon Harris received her B.S. in Systems Engineering from George Mason University and her PhD in Business Analytics and Operations from The University of Pittsburgh. She is currently an assistant professor of Operations Management at Fisher College of Business. She is interested in research topics in data analytics with a focus on health care applications. Prior to entering academia, Shannon worked as a management consultant at a Big Four firm, and as a cost analyst for a Department of Defense contractor.
   
• Dr. James Hill received his B.A. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Dayton, his MBA from Case Western Reserve University and his PhD from Fisher College of Business. Professor Hill joined the Fisher faculty in 2004, after teaching graduate courses at the Owen graduate school of Management at Vanderbilt University. Currently an Associate Professor of Management Sciences, he teaches the core MBA course in Operations Management at Fisher and courses in Operations Planning and Control and Supply Chain Management. Professor Hill’s research is primarily in Operations Planning and Control, specializing in improving efficiency in process industry environments and behavioral contracts within supply chains. He has extensive work experience with Pepsi Co. as a production manager and supplier development manager.
   
• Dr. Patrick Kielty joined expects to earn his PhD from the University of Florida in the Fall of 2018. He holds an M.S. degree from Duke University’s The Fuqua School of Business, and holds a B.A. degree from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is currently a member of the Accounting and Management Information Systems department at the Fisher College of Business. His primary research interests are in the areas of auditing and gender diversity issues in accounting.
   
• Dr. Erin McKie received her PhD from the University of South Carolina in Management Sciences. She also holds as BS in Business Administration from the University of South Carolina. She is an Assistant Professor in the Management Sciences department. Dr. McKie's research is focused in the areas of sustainable operations, closed loop supply chains, and environmental regulations. In recent, her research has focused on challenges organizations face when pursuing product reuse initiatives. Topics she has worked on include examining consumers' valuations of sustainable products, identifying the optimal structure of environmental regulations, understanding the implications of selling new and remanufactured products simultaneously, and developing analytical models to better predict consumer returns. In addition to research, Dr. McKie teaches the core undergraduate course in operations management. Her classroom experience includes courses in the areas of business analytics, global sourcing, operations management, and service process design.
   
• Dr. Cynthia Turner received her PhD in Accounting from The Ohio State University as well her MA, she also holds a BS in accounting from North Carolina A&T State University in Greensgoro, NC. Prior to beginning her academic life, Dr. Turner was a practicing accountant at EY. She joined the Department of Accounting and MIS as a senior lecturer of accounting after having served on the faculty of the Department of Accountancy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for more than 17 years where she she was lecturer and associate director of the department’s undergraduate accountancy program. Dr. Turner currently teaches courses in accounting and information systems, and cost and managerial accounting in the undergraduate and MAcc programs. Further, she teaches in the executive education program at Fisher College. As a researcher, Cynthia’s scholarly work has been published in the Journal of Accounting Research and the International Journal of Accounting. In addition to teaching, Dr. Turner created Project THRIVE, a diversity initiative designed to increase the underrepresented minority talent within the undergraduate program in the accounting and MIS department.
   
• Dr. Walter Zinn received a PhD and MBA from Michigan State University. He holds a BA from Fundacao Getulio Vargas in Brazil. Professor Zinn’s research interests focus primarily on the impact of customer service policies on the determination of safety stocks. As part of this focus, his research addresses issues such as the effects of inventory centralization and sales forecasting on safety stocks, logistics partnerships and, more recently, consumer reactions to stockouts. Professor Zinn is also interested in logistics issues in Latin America and received a logistics innovation award from the Latin American Logistics Center.