Smith Research Excellence Awards
New Researcher Achievement Award
The primary goal of the annual New Researcher Achievement Award is the recognition of faculty members whose research during the pre-tenure period is acknowledged as outstanding, and has brought credit to Smith School of Business. Receipts of this award will encourage ongoing research that will continue to appear in high quality academic publications.
Guang Li
Guang Li is an assistant professor of Management Science and a Scotiabank Scholar. She received her PhD from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California in 2016, her MEng from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and MSc from the National University of Singapore. Her research, which focuses on revenue management, retail operations, and supply chain management, has been funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and her work has been published in FT50 journals, including Operations Research, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, and Production & Operations Management.
Nicole Robitaille
Nicole Robitaille is an assistant professor of Marketing, working in consumer behaviour and decision making, exploring ways to improve public policy and consumer welfare. She received her PhD from the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and her MSc in Marketing from Concordia University’s John Molson School of Business. Nicole has published in top journals, including FT50s, like the Journal of Marketing, Management Science, and the Harvard Business Review. She was recently awarded a Financial Times Responsible Business Education Award for her research on organ donation in Ontario, for which she also received the Ontario Government’s prestigious Amethyst Award for Outstanding Achievement.
Award for Research Excellence
The primary goal of the annual Award for Research Excellence is the recognition of an individual faculty member whose research is acknowledged as outstanding, and has brought considerable credit to Smith School of Business. Receipt of this award will result in ongoing research that will continue to appear in high quality academic publications.
Ning Zhang
Ning Zhang is a professor of accounting and Commerce 1983 Distinguished Faculty Fellow. He is a prolific researcher whose work has appeared in FT50 journals. He earned his PhD in business administration from Duke University in North Carolina and his master’s degree in economics from the State University of New York at Binghamton. His interests center on information and incentives in financial markets, and he has been published in leading journals, including Journal of Accounting Research, Journal of Accounting and Economics, The Accounting Review, Management Science, and Review of Accounting Studies.
New PhD Student Research Excellence Award
The purpose of the New PhD Student Research Excellence Award is to recognize an individual PhD student whose pre-comprehensive exam academic progress and demonstrated research potential are acknowledged as outstanding, as guided by the vision for the PhD program.
Kaylee Somerville
Kaylee Somerville researches intervention strategies for leaders, behavioural economics, and decision-making at work. She is a staff writer at The Decision Lab, contributing pieces on gratitude, loss aversion, distracted driving, and online communities. Her work explores barriers that managers encounter in being effective leaders and, in collaboration with her supervisor Julian Barling, is a co-author of a forthcoming book chapter in An Introduction to Contemporary Work Psychology.
PhD Student Research Excellence Award
The purpose of the PhD Student Research Excellence Award is to recognize an individual PhD student whose academic progress and demonstrated research potential during the post-comprehensive exam stage of the PhD program are acknowledged as outstanding, as guided by the vision for the PhD program.
Alyssa Grocutt
Alyssa Grocutt studies workplace safety, including safety-related leadership behaviours, parental workplace injuries and their impacts, and has already received distinctions including the Minerva Rising Star of the Year in 2023. Her work has been published in Safety Science, Human Resource Development International, and Organizational Dynamics. Together with Julian Barling, she co-authored a book chapter in Occupational health and wellbeing. Another avenue of Alyssa’s research focuses on tattoos in professional settings.
Smith Graduate Supervision Award
This award recognizes a faculty member whose contributions to graduate supervision have inspired students and contributed meaningfully to their learning. Other criteria include: inspiring students’ commitment to, and involvement in, research; mentoring; and providing leadership in students’ career development.
Anthony Goerzen
Anthony Goerzen, Sobey Professor of International Business, received his PhD from the University of Western Ontario. His extensive teaching experience includes the Ivey School of Business, the UVic School of Business, and Babson College. This award recognizes Anthony’s impactful and inspiring leadership as a mentor and educator of young researchers. Graduate students benefit from Anthony’s significant management experience, which he brings to his pedagogy.
Smith Graduate Teaching Excellence Award
Recipients of this award are faculty members in at least the second year of full-time appointment who have demonstrated an outstanding commitment to students in the PhD-MSc program. Graduate students interpret what constitutes teaching excellence by considering how well the instructor generates motivation, the effectiveness of the pedagogical approach, the extra-classroom supports offered, and the commitment of the faculty member over and above the norm.
Gongtai Wang
Gongtai Wang is an assistant professor of Digital Technology who worked as a postdoctoral researcher in Business Information Systems Discipline at UQ Business School of Queensland, Australia before joining the Smith faculty. He received his PhD from Warwick Business School and has also been a system engineer in the information technology industry, an experience he brings to his engaging classes, which focus on rethinking and redesigning traditional products and services using emergent digital technologies.