Faculty Mentors

MBA, University of Southern California; BA, Smith College

Jody Tolan specializes in leadership and organizational development. She has created programs to build leadership skills among emerging managers, middle managers, and senior executive teams to meet strategic and organizational goals. She has also led workshops on leading teams, management communications and strategy development. She has designed and facilitated programs in Marshall’s Office of Executive Education and consulted with Wescom Credit Union, Honda Financial Services, Allergan, BDO Seidman and Thailand Government Savings Bank. Professor Tolan began her career on Capitol Hill followed by positions in several boutique consulting firms in New York City.

PhD, University of Southern California; MBA, BBA, American University of Beirut

Christine El-Haddad specializes in business, corporate and global strategy and has taught courses in strategy in Marshall’s undergraduate, MBA, and MS in Social Entrepreneurship programs. She has received the Golden Apple Award for excellence in teaching twice alongside multiple other teaching awards and media mentions. Dr. El-Haddad has substantial experience in designing educational programs and conferences. She has developed executive education programs for the USC Office of Continuing Education. She has also organized and delivered two highly successful day-long Marshall conferences featuring nationally renowned speakers. As a management consultant and strategist, she has advised businesses in various industries and leading nonprofits including Habitat for Humanity.

Ph.D., Stanford; B.S., University of Michigan

Smrity Randhawa is an Accounting scholar whose area of expertise spans financial accounting, managerial accounting, valuation, disclosure and corporate governance. Smrity holds a PhD in Business from the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. In her research, she has studied the effect of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act on small public companies. At Marshall School of Business she has taught classes ranging from Introductory Accounting for undergraduate students to Financial Statement Analysis for graduate students. In addition to her faculty duties, she also provides consulting services related to: bankruptcy analysis; fair value accounting measurements and valuations; and provides opinions on the analysis of other experts.

MBA, BS, University of Southern California

Zivia Sweeney is an expert in strategic planning and budgeting, mergers and acquisitions, and accounting and finance operations for manufacturing, healthcare, service, and nonprofit organizations. She has served in senior management roles in public corporate and nonprofit arenas, and has held the of Chief Financial Officer, Vice President of Finance, and Corporate Controller. Professor Sweeney is a PriceWaterhouseCoopers alumnus. She has served for a number of years as a member of the USC Leventhal School’s Accounting Advisory Board.

MST, Golden Gate University; B.S., University of California at Berkeley

Greg was a partner at Kling & Pathak LLP prior to its acquisition by a Big 4 accounting firm. In addition to providing tax planning, tax compliance, and business consulting services during his career in public accounting, Greg also provided IRS and state tax audit representation for both his clients and clients of the other tax partners. Greg is a full-time professor who specializes in individual, real estate, and state/local tax issues. He is also the update author for the LexisNexis treatise, Federal Taxes Affecting Real Estate. Greg earned his B.S. in accounting from University of California, Berkeley and his M.S. in taxation from Golden Gate University.

PhD, University of Southern California; BA, University of California, Santa Cruz

Dr. Glenn Fox is the Head of Program Design, Strategy, and Outreach at the USC Performance Science Institute.  A neuroscientist by training, he began at USC working as a research assistant in the Brain and Creativity Institute, after which he went on to earn his PhD in the Neuroscience Graduate Program and complete a post-doctoral fellowship with Professors Hanna and Antonio Damasio. Glenn is at the forefront of research on gratitude and human performance.  Glenn teaches “The Science of Peak Performance” during the Spring Semester, leads trainings with leaders and groups, and conducts research on mindset and physiology.

MBA, University of Southern California; BS, CSU-Northridge

Patrick Henry's expertise is in applying theories of social networking into career and business development efforts for professionals. He received Marshall's Golden Apple Award in 2006 and 2012. He also received the Ivan C. Thompson Award for Mentoring of Students. Professor Henry was member of the Board of Directors of the Association for Corporate Growth, Los Angeles Chapter, and the President's Circle in the Town Hall of Los Angeles. He currently heads the Referral Engine Company which teaches social networking as a business development tool to professionals in organizations like Bank of America, Deloitte & Touche, White & Case, Comerica Bank and Smith Barney/Citibank.

PhD, UCLA; MS, BS, Bilkent University

Murat Bayiz is an Associate Professor of Clinical Data Sciences and Operations at Marshall School of Business. He has two decades of combined management consulting and academic experience and specializes in operations strategy, project and supply chain management.

Murat teaches courses in supply chain management, project management, and operations management, operations consulting at Marshall School’s undergraduate, MS in GSCM, and MBA programs. In recent years he received two Golden Apple awards for teaching excellence and the Evan Thompson award for teaching and learning innovation.

Prior to joining USC, Murat was a management consultant and senior researcher at PRTM Management Consultants (later acquired by PwC) and consulted with high tech companies on supply chain strategy projects. While he was at PRTM, he earned the prestigious Move the Needle award given to consultants for projects with the most significant client impacts. Previously, he was a consultant at Kiran Analytics and developed optimization and simulation models for Fortune 500 companies.

Murat earned his Ph.D. in Operations Management from the Anderson School of Management at UCLA. He received his Bachelor of Science (graduated as valedictorian) and his Master of Science in Industrial Engineering from Bilkent University. Murat completed the Certified in Production and Inventory Management (CPIM) program by APICS.

Phil Rogers received a B.S. in Mathematics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and both an M.S. and Ph.D. in Operations Research from the University of California at Berkeley, with minors in Statistics and Mathematical Economics. During a 33-year career at Exxon Corporation, Phil developed many sophisticated mathematical models that were used to optimize a wide variety of the Corporation's business operations. He then joined the University of Houston, where he taught courses in statistics, business modeling and decision making and was awarded a university-wide teaching excellence award. Following a year-and-a-half stay at Arizona State University, where he taught business modeling and optimization, Phil joined the Marshall School of Business, where he coordinates the undergraduate core statistics course and teaches in the MBA program.

Feng Chen is an operations management scholar. Her research interests include process analysis, supply chain management and supply chain analytics, and experimental study of behavioral impact on operations decision making. She teaches courses of operations management and data analysis for decision making. Feng received her Ph.D. in business administration from University of Southern California.

Ph.D., University of Miami; M.S., Carnegie Mellon University; B.Sc., University of Basel, Switzerland

Eva Buechel is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the University of Southern California. Her research interests focus on the psychological processes that shape consumer judgments, decisions and behaviors. Specifically, she examines how current experiential states affect cognitions and how these in turn determine consumers’ estimations of utility and value. Her research appeared in top marketing and psychology journals, including Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, and Emotion. She teaches the undergraduate marketing fundamentals course at the Marshall School of Business.

PhD, Yale University; MBA, University of California, Los Angeles; BA, Stanford University

Dennis Schorr is an expert on strategic flexibility, marketing resources and capabilities, and competitive advantage. His research has been published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. He has consulted for a variety of organizations in Marketing Strategy, Marketing Research and Strategy, and Total Quality Management and Market Responsiveness.

Ph.D., MBA, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Sena Durguner research interests are in the area of Banking and Financial Institutions, Corporate Finance, Small Business Finance, and Financial Economics. Before joining the Marshall School of Business, she was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Northeastern University in Boston and she was also a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in Washington DC. Professor Durguner presented several of her academic papers at governmental organizations such as Federal Reserve Board, Office of the Comptroller of Currency, FDIC, Bank of Canada, and also in national finance conferences. Professor Durguner also taught at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she was recognized numerous times for her teaching. Her teaching portfolio includes microeconomics, economics statistics, and corporate finance courses. Before her academic background, Professor Durguner worked several years as an analyst in the financial sector.

PhD, University of Southern California; BA, Koc University

Rahsan Akbulut research interests include macroeconomics, labor economics, and household and family economics. Her research was published in Macroeconomic Dynamics. Prior to re-joining USC, she was a visiting Assistant Professor at Pomona College for 3 years. She taught Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, and Applied Regression analysis. Before her academic career began, Professor Akbulut worked as a financial controller at Daimler AG. in Istanbul, Turkey.

Rodney Ramcharan served as the first chief of the Systemic Financial Institutions and Markets Section at the Board Governors of the Federal Reserve System. He also worked for the International Monetary Fund from 2000-2010, primarily on emerging markets such as South Africa and in developing economies. He has also been a visiting scholar at the Dutch National Bank and the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, and a consultant to the Swedish Riksbank. His research has been published in the leading finance and economics journals, such as the American Economic Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Finance, and the Journal of Financial Economics.

MBA, University of Southern California; BA, UCLA

Scott Abrams specializes in corporate finance, portfolio management, financial analysis and valuation, and microeconomics. He teaches these subjects in both the graduate and undergraduate programs at USC Marshall. In addition, Professor Abrams is the co-instructor for the MBA and Undergraduate Student Investment Fund classes. He is the 2016 Golden Apple Teaching Award Winner for the Full-Time MBA Core Program. Professor Abrams received his MBA from USC Marshall and is an alumnus of the SIF Program (2004). Prior to joining the faculty at USC Marshall, he worked in corporate finance at Sony Pictures and Warner Bros. In addition, he is an alumnus of Deloitte and is a licensed CPA.

MBA, University of Southern Califorina; BA, Loyola Marymount University

Maria Colman is the owner and founder of handmadeMaria®. The original business plan was part of her MBA at the University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business. Maria has over 30 years' experience in retail marketing, accounting management, direct sales, and education. Before joining USC, Maria taught at California State University, Los Angeles; Moorpark College; and Antelope Valley College. She brings her diverse business background, enthusiasm, and tangible experience to her classes. Her upcycled products and handmade art pieces are sold at brick and mortar and online stores.

Dr. Guo’s research focuses on organizational and intercultural communication in business. She is particularly interested and specialized in identity development and strategic negotiation in various international organizational contexts. Her research has appeared on top-tier journals that examined topics such as organizational culture, conflict management, emotion management, communication technology use in business (e.g., social media, mobile), and leadership communication. Professor’s pedagogical expertise in academia includes organizational communication, communication strategies in business, leadership communication, business and professional communication, communication in non-western culture, and persuasion. Prior to academia, Dr. Guo held program and event coordinator positions in Chinese and U.S. multinational companies, specializing intercultural business communication.

PhD, University of Southern California; MA, University of San Diego; BA, Claremont McKenna College

Stephen Byars has received the Outstanding Assistant Lecturer Award from the Writing Program at USC as well as the Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award from the School of Religion at USC. He also nominated in May 2010 by the USC Parents Association for its Outstanding Teaching and Mentoring Award. Since joining USC full-time in 1997, Professor Byars has spent considerable time in the teaching and administration of different versions of Writing 340, including Advanced Writing for Business.