25 Years
of Impact

“I knew after visiting Queen’s while my sister was looking at engineering programs that it was where I wanted to be. I entered the MSc program with my sights set on a PhD and a career in academia. I took a year off after completing my MSc and took a few courses in organizational behaviour and developed a passion for the subject area. I decided to get a second MSc in OB at Penn State University and went on to get my PhD at Boston College. I spent seven years as faculty at Montpellier Business School in France before moving back to Canada. I’m now loving my time researching, teaching, and supervising graduate students in my role at the University of Toronto.”

“I knew at age 15 that I wanted to pursue a PhD and focus my research on workplace safety. My father was killed in a workplace incident, which has driven my passion for educating others on the importance of workplace safety. I found my way to Smith through alumnus Nick Turner (MSc’98). He introduced me to Julian Barling, who would become the welcoming force greeting me at Smith. When I opened the syllabus for Foundations in Organizational Behaviour and saw the amount of readings, I knew I was in the right place. I’m now completing my PhD. The faculty have really helped me narrow my scope of research and to be the best researcher I can be. The future is unknown and I’m considering both academia and industry as my path, but for now, I’m focused on my dissertation research on the consequences of workplace injuries and fatalities for the indirect victims such as family, coworkers, and leaders.”

“I came to the MSc program with a degree in Commerce from McMaster University and was excited to do a business master’s that wasn’t an MBA. My supervisor Kevin Kelloway and I conducted a research project over the summer looking at employee perceptions of knowledge sharing. I learned so much – how to collect data, and how to write it up. We submitted and had it published in the Leadership & Organizational Development Journal, and it is still my most highly cited research paper, with well over 1,000 citations. I continued on and got my PhD at Queen’s and then landed back at McMaster as a professor. I continue to research many topics that interested me during my time in the MSc program.”

“I moved to Canada from Brazil and enrolling at Smith aligned with my goal of developing my research skills and desire to teach. I completed both my MSc in strategy and PhD in organizational behavior and I am now a postdoctoral researcher examining the scaling of social innovation in food, microfinance, and green hydrogen. I built a strong connection with Kingston through this research, studying farmers’ markets in the area. The MSc program made a real difference in my life and now I have the honour of supervising students on their academic journeys. I enjoy teaching. It’s very intense, but I love it.”

“I became interested in organizational behaviour during my undergraduate studies. After a course on work psychology was cancelled in the Department of Psychology, I contacted Julian Barling in the business school because I was told he was an expert in the field. I ended up complaining to him about the cancelled course and, in response, he asked me to be an RA in his lab! That marked the beginning of my journey to the MSc. The program was challenging, in a way that motivated me to delve deeper into what I was learning. I enjoyed wrestling with questions that came up in seminars, and I was grateful for stumbling upon a group of people that matched my inquisitive nature. While I didn’t plan for a career as a professor, I loved writing, designing experiments, and tinkering with online surveys, so I figured why not get my PhD at Queen’s? Upon graduation, I landed my dream job at Seattle University. To date, one of my most memorable experiences has been receiving the faculty-student research collaboration award presented by the Dean of the Albers School of Business and Economics in 2020. Being honored for a successful partnership with undergrad business school alum made me feel that in some small way I was able to spread the kindness, consideration, and training that Queen’s faculty had shown me throughout my education.”

“I was interested in organizational psychology in my final years at Queen’s. I knocked on Julian Barling’s door to inquire about the program and the possibility of him supervising my research, if accepted. I don’t recall the content of the first conversation with Julian, but I recall coming out of that meeting confident as ever in my desire to pursue academia. Of the innumerable and transformational benefits I derived from this great program, I am most grateful to Julian & Bill Cooper: Julian for instilling the early research values central to be a critical consumer (and creator) of research and the importance having unwavering confidence in your student’s research; and Bill for constantly pushing me to appreciate the importance of the philosophy of science and encouraging me to spread my wings beyond what I thought was possible.”

“At industry recruitment time during my final year of the Queen’s Commerce program, I wasn’t totally sure I was ready to be done with school. I had more questions, so I decided to enrol in the MSc in marketing. I had no idea what to expect. I didn’t know what an academic-based master’s program was, and had never even read a marketing journal article. The program helped me realize my passion for research. My mentor, Jay Handelman, was an incredible teacher and the research I did under his supervision was pivotal to the success I later had in the University of Arizona's PhD program. With research already underway, I was able to hit the ground running; it set the stage for everything that has come since in my career. I knew I wanted to work at Smith one day, but never envisioned it would be my first job after graduating the PhD program. The school, the work, the colleagues, have all turned out to be a fantastic fit for me and my family.”

“During my third year of the Commerce program, I came across a job posting in Dunning Hall for a position as part of a research collaboration with MIT. It wasn't very common then for BCom students to work as research assistants, but that role opened my eyes to the world of research. I applied to the MSc to reduce my uncertainty in pursuing a PhD. It did just that. I got my PhD at the University of Toronto and now I am head of the PhD program at Georgia Tech in the strategy and innovation group and co-site lead at the Creative Destruction Lab in Atlanta. I’m also still actively writing papers with my MSc supervisor, John McHale.”

“After completing an undergraduate degree in Commerce, I decided I wanted to take a different route than my peers. At the suggestion of the late Professor Bill Miklas, I applied to the MSc program in the organizational behaviour area group in the hopes of having Julian Barling as my supervisor. The neat thing about the program was the small environment compared to Commerce; it was an interesting group of people I got to spent time with. After graduating, I completed my PhD at the University of Sheffield in England and then returned to Queen’s to teach from 2002-3006. Julian and I also published our first paper together in 2002 and continue to conduct research together to this day. In my current role, I’m enjoying conducting research within the Canadian Centre for Advanced Leadership in Business and working with graduate students.”

“I joined the accounting group in the MSc program in 2002 with an auditing background. Thinking back to my studies 20 years ago, I am extremely grateful to Mike Welker, Teri Shearer and, most especially, my mentor and thesis co-author Dan Thornton for teaching me about accounting research and sharing critical theories and perspectives beyond those seen as a practitioner alone. After the program, I went on to work in various roles, including as the financial officer for the Faculty of Arts and Science at Queen’s. My passion for the education of accountants then led me to contract work for various professional accounting organizations and, eventually, to teaching at Smith where I am a continuing adjunct lecturer in accounting. I enjoy teaching in the Commerce program, the Graduate Diploma in Accounting program and the Accelerated and Executive MBA programs.”

“I began my career at Smith in 2002 in the finance area. I still recall the first graduate student I supervised in 2005 who went on to a successful career with the Bank of Canada. I’m proud to have supervised more than 15 MSc and PhD students to completion, all of whom secured employment in industry and academia across Canada and the U.S. In 2022, twenty years after arriving at Smith, I took on a leadership position as Associate Dean, Graduate Programs with the MSc and PhD programs. I’m working with the team to make our programs the best they can possibly be to ensure we continue to deliver a high-quality graduate student experience. We’ve recently added on-campus internship opportunities and experiential learning for our students.”

“I started as a faculty member at Smith in 2003, and have been involved with teaching courses in the MSc program and supervising MSc students since that time. Students in the MSc program are at the beginning stages of exploring a research-based career. It is always so rewarding to see how far they progress with their research skills in just one year of the program. What makes me most proud is looking at the success of so many of our MSc graduates as they pursue research-based careers in academia and industry. Playing a part in the early stages of one’s research career is an incredibly rewarding part of being a faculty member at Smith.”

“I joined Smith as an assistant professor in 2003 shortly after completing my doctoral studies at Sauder, UBC. Coming to Smith and growing as a faculty member here has been an incredibly rewarding experience. Fast forward nearly 20 years and I am now the Associate Dean of Research at Smith. In this new role, I’m working to elevate Smith’s research impact on the global stage. In addition to establishing one of the best research institutions in Canada, the highlight of my career would be being able to teach, supervise, research, and produce academic literature with my MSc and PhD students. Mentoring students allows me to gain momentum in all facets of my research and research duties, it keeps me going and striving for the best.”

“I came to Queen’s for an interview in the Psychology department in 1983, while I was on sabbatical at Stony Brook University on Long Island. I was offered the position, and our family emigrated from South Africa and I joined the Queen’s Psychology department in September 1984. A decade later, I became a full professor in the School of Business, teaching in the Commerce, MBA, and PhD programs. Fast forward a few years, and I assumed the position of the academic director of the EMBA program. After a year, I was asked by the Dean at the time to chair the PhD program. Soon thereafter, the MSc program was developed with the intention that it would provide a one-year, research-based master’s degree, and provide a pathway to the PhD. The first cohort of more than 20 students entered the MSc program in September 1997. Looking back, what I find most fulfilling is seeing how our grads have flourished – in their personal lives and working lives, in banks, small companies, charitable organizations, and as faculty members in universities across the world.”

“Prior to joining Queen’s in 2014, I was at the University of Virginia where we did not have MSc or PhD programs. I had no experience supervising students and started in the MSc program before moving on to supervise in the PhD program. It has been a great experience. MSc students have contributed greatly to my scholarly output; for example, my very first student, Gaganpreet Singh, helped with the teaching note for a case that ended up being one of the top 10 global bestsellers a few years later. Two of my MSc students, Xianfeng Meng and Kiarash Hassani, continued on to get their PhDs. And another, Melanie Adler, is now in consulting. We stay in touch and discuss how to best prepare the next generation of students.”