Faculty Mentors

PhD, Stanford; B.S. Wellesley College

Julie Suh earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Wellesley College and her Ph.D. in Business Administration (Accounting) from Stanford University. Her research interests include voluntary disclosure, CEO compensation, earnings management, and corporate governance.  She previously taught financial accounting to undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley and most recently, at Loyola Marymount University. While at Berkeley, she was honored with the Outstanding New Instructor Award as well as the student-nominated Earl F. Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching.  Prior to academia, Suh spent time in the corporate sector as an economic consultant for Cornerstone Research in San Francisco and as an investment banking analyst for Goldman Sachs in New York City. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Marcus, and their two dogs, and enjoys surfing, obstacle course racing, and flying on the trapeze in her free time.

MBT, University of Southern California; B.S., University of Southern California

MaryAnne Sabido Werner – Currently an Assistant Professor in Clinical Accounting at University of Southern California, teaching her second year. Prior to joining USC, MaryAnne was an International Tax Partner at PwC. MaryAnne’s tax career at PwC was twenty years and two years at BDO Seidman before that.
MaryAnne always wanted to teach and enjoyed training less experienced staff throughout her career, she lead various internal and external trainings.
MaryAnne is married to Chris Werner and together have a daughter Nicole Ana (12) and son Kyle Christopher (8).
MaryAnne received her Masters in Business Taxation and BS in accounting at USC in 1993 and 1992 respectively.

MAcc, BS, DePaul University

Rose Layton is an expert in auditing and assurance and financial accounting, particularly in the areas of auditor liability and financial statement fraud. She is a Searle Fellow and a recipient of the Margaret Keldie Award from the American Society of Woman Accountants.

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.

MBA, B.S., California Polytechnic University, Pomona

A specialist in Operation Excellence, Application of Lean Six Sigma(LSS) and an expert in Global Supply Chain Management(GSCM), Nick Vyas has implemented process improvements for over 300 projects globally that have increased efficiency for clients in the fields of health care, service, military, retail, and end-to-end supply chain. As the Executive Director and Co-founder of USC Marshall’s Center for GSCM and as an Assistant Professor of Clinical Data Sciences & Operations, Vyas is educating the next generation of business leaders. Previously, Vyas had taught GSCM and LSS courses at CalPoly Pomona.
Working closely with students, Vyas consulted for over 25 global operations across various sectors. He integrated technology and directed teams that both optimized speed-to-market and managed cost/quality.

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.

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.

MBA, BS, University of California, Los Angeles

Ira S. Kalb is a professor, consultant, speaker and author of 10 books and 357 published articles and 613 media appearances. He has 45 years of business experience as President and VP of marketing of COMPAL Inc. and CEO of Kalb & Associates. He received the Golden Apple teaching award in 2009, 2011, 2014, and 2016. He was Knighted by the Finnish Government as Knight First Class of the Order of the Lion of Finland. Students and clients are employing his marketing inventions with great success in the marketplace. He is on a Wall Street Journal crisis management expert panel.

PhD, University of Southern California; MBA, BA, California Polytechnic State University

Lars Perner's research interests focus in non-profit marketing, sponsored fundraising, consumer behavior, consumer price response, branding, and bargain hunting. His work has been published in the Journal of Marketing Management, Journal of Marketing Education, Journal of Consumer Affairs, and Journal of Consumer Psychology. He currently serves as a faculty coordinator for the Department of Marketing's undergraduate introductory marketing course sections, which serve approximately 1,600 students every academic year.

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.

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.

Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; MBA, Thunderbird School of Global Management; B.A., Koc University

Seda Durguner research interests are in the area of Banking and Financial Institutions, Corporate Finance, Household 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 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, 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, managerial economics, corporate finance, and financial markets courses. Before her academic background, Professor Durguner worked several years as an analyst in the financial sector.

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, UCLA; MA, University of Southern California, BA, Occidental College

Lucy Lee specializes in workplace communication strategies and development of professional writing, speaking, and interpersonal communication skills. Her doctoral work at UCLA focused on organizational change in higher education and the link between service learning curricula and levels of student civic engagement. Prior to joining Marshall, Professor Lee worked as a network news editor/producer and held several positions in media and public relations at nonprofit organizations in Los Angeles and New York City. Her teaching has been recognized with the Golden Apple Award (2008) and the Evan C. Thompson Award for Teaching and Mentoring (2005).

PhD, University of Texas at Austin; MA, CSU-Los Angeles; BS, Portland State University

Naomi Warren specializes in communication issues related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, with a particular emphasis on race, gender, social class, media representations, politics, and policy. Her teaching, research, and consulting are informed by her professional experience as an accountant in the transportation, manufacturing, health care, service, retail, entertainment, and legal sectors and her doctoral research in communication studies, rhetoric, race, and the politics of representation. She was honored with a Golden Apple Teaching Award in 2005 and 2010. Service commitments include advising Marshall’s international case competition teams and serving on the University Diversity Committee.

PhD, University of Illinois; MILR, Cornell University, BA, Bryn Mawr College

Professor Pasztor’s research focuses on digital and mass communication, (media history, media economics, and the media industry, specifically television programming); gender studies (organizational representations, discourse, workplace and pay equity), and popular culture. Her pedagogical expertise in academia includes strategic professional communication, business case analysis, the media industry/history and fandom, and gender communication. She is the author of several book chapters on the media industry, social media/technology and audience engagement. Prior to academia, Dr. Pasztor was a Senior Strategic Management Consultant at Pricewaterhouse LLP and IBM, implementing global organizational, communication and training strategy for Fortune 500 clients.

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, 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.

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; 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.