Fisher AI Retreat
Connect, collaborate and advance the future of AI at Fisher
Thursday, April 9, 8 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. | Mason Hall Rotunda
Join us for the inaugural Fisher AI Research Retreat, a half-day gathering that brings the Fisher and The Ohio State University research community together around the rapidly evolving field of artificial intelligence.
The retreat will convene faculty and PhD scholars to exchange ideas, explore emerging research and build connections through faculty and doctoral presentations, research posters and thematic roundtable discussions highlighting innovative work at the intersection of AI, business and society.
Designed to spark collaboration, the retreat creates space for researchers to discover shared interests and develop partnerships that can lead to joint projects, grant proposals and publications.
Together, participants will help shape a shared vision for responsible, influential AI research at Fisher and Ohio State while exploring how AI can drive meaningful impact in business and society.
Agenda Overview
8-8:55 a.m.
Breakfast
8:55-9 a.m.
Opening Remarks
Rebecca Walker Reczek, Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Research
9-10:20 a.m.
Faculty Research Presentations
Grant Donnelly , Associate Professor, Marketing and Logistics
Understanding and Overcoming Consumer Resistance toward Adopting AI-Powered Mental Health Products
Wayne Fu, Visiting Associate Professor, Operations and Business Analytics
Vince Castillo, Assistant Professor, Marketing and Logistics
Environmental Commitment in Crowdfunding: An Examination Using Artificial Intelligence
Yuheng Hu, Associate Professor, Accounting and MIS
Predicting Field Experiments with LLMs
Nil Karacaoglu, Assistant Professor, Operations and Business Analytics
Beyond Keywords: How LLM-Powered Semantic Search Reshapes Product Discovery in Online Marketplaces
Michael Wittry, Assistant Professor, Finance
Who Sets the Price? The Vertical Origins of Uniform Pricing
Lu Zhang, Professor, Finance
Investment-based Costs of Equity
10:20-10:40 a.m.
PhD Student Lightning Presentations
Erfan Bayat, Management and Human Resources
Nkemdilim Chibuko, Management and Human Resources
Rang Gong, Marketing and Logistics
Yiming Huang, Management and Human Resources
Hanho Lee , Management and Human Resources
Mohamed Megahed, Operations and Business Analytics
Lei Wang , Economics
Xin Wen, Management and Human Resources
Amaris Williams, Medicine
10:40 a.m. - 11:20 a.m.
Poster Session and Coffee Break
11:20-11:50 a.m.
Information and Industry Session
Tanya Berger-Wolf is director of the Translational Data Analytics Institute at Ohio State and a professor of computer science and engineering, electrical and computer engineering and evolution, ecology, and organismal biology at The Ohio State University. She leads the NSF-funded Imageomics Institute and the US–Canada AI and Biodiversity Change (ABC) Global Climate Center.
A computational ecologist, her work integrates AI, computer science and wildlife biology to advance biodiversity conservation. She serves on the U.S. National Academies Board on Life Sciences and several global AI and conservation initiatives. Berger-Wolf co-founded the nonprofit Wild Me, creator of the Wildbook platform for wildlife identification and monitoring.
Nathan Laing is a senior consultant at Nationwide Financial, where he specializes in data-driven marketing strategy and analytics for the financial services industry. With more than a decade at Nationwide, he leads initiatives that combine marketing expertise with advanced analytics to drive measurable business outcomes. His work includes developing predictive models to identify top producers, aligning sales and marketing through data insights, identifying geographic growth opportunities, and executing strategic campaigns that have significantly increased submitted business.
Nathan also led the creation of an award-winning augmented reality advisor experience recognized by senior leadership and the Nationwide Board.
Mark Oleson is a data scientist at the Ohio Education Research Center, where he supports public agencies through the Ohio Longitudinal Data Archive at The Ohio State University. With a background in economic and political theory, his work spans labor market analysis, higher education supply-demand modeling, and job postings research — translating complex administrative data into actionable insights for state agencies including the Ohio Department of Higher Education.
Previously at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, he contributed to economic analysis, maintained a large R-based chart repository, and supported Beige Book and FOMC policy briefings. His work focuses on transforming complex administrative and survey data into insights that inform education and workforce policy.
Noon-1 p.m.
Lunch and Roundtable Discussions
The Human Side of AI: Tracy Dumas, Professor, Management and Human Resources
AI Tools for Academic Research: What’s Actually Useful?: Jane Jiang, Assistant Professor, Operations and Business Analytics
Label Noise: Challenges and Solutions: Waleed Muhanna, Professor, Accounting and Management Information Systems
From Automation to Augmentation: Designing Human-AI Systems for Teaching and Learning: Zac Patterson, Assistant Director of Research, The Drake Institute for Teaching and Learning
Firms in the Age of AI: Sean Wan, Professor, Marketing and Logistics
The Evolving Role of AI in Financial Services: Yufeng Wu, Associate Professor, Finance
TBD: Deborah Mitchell, Clinical Associate Professor, Marketing and Logistics
1-2:25 p.m.
Faculty Research Presentations
Joreen Arigye, Assistant Professor of Practice, Center for Computing Education
Extending the Expert Learner Framework for Co-Regulation with GenAI
Christian Blanco, Assistant Professor, Operations and Business Analytics
Impact of AI Assisted Learning on Learning Engagement and Outcomes
Andrea Contigiani, Assistant Professor, Management and Human Resources
Entrepreneurship, Experimentation, and Generative AI: Evidence from ChatGPT
Jeff Dotson, Associate Professor, Marketing and Logistics
Toward a Manipulable Taxonomy of Product-Specific Aesthetic Dimensions
Lori Kendall, Senior Lecturer, Management and Human Resources
From Copy-Paste to Cognitive Lift: A Classroom Pilot of Structured AI Pedagogy in Entrepreneurship Education
Hun Lee, Associate Professor, Management and Human Resources
Generative AI as a Bridge in Evidence-Based Management
Alice Li, Associate Professor, Marketing and Logistics
Collaborative Intelligence: Reconstructing the Invisible Consumer from Fragmented Survey Data
2:25-2:30 p.m.
Closing Remarks
Aravind Chandrasekaran, Interim Dean and John W. Berry, Sr. Chair in Business