Meet the New Professors - 2002-03
The McCombs School is happy to welcome the following nine new tenure-track professors for the 2002-03 academic year. We've included these brief profiles for students and friends who would like to meet these latest members of the McCombs community. As usual, the school also welcomes a number of part- and full-time lecturers with the start of the fall semester, and we'll be making an effort to cover some of their activities as well over the coming year.
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| Accounting Department | Finance Department | ||||||
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Gerhard Barone |  |
Jeffrey Hales |  |
Aydogan Alti | ||
| Management Department | |||||||
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Muir Macpherson |  |
Jeffrey Martin |  |
Stewart Miller | ||
| MSIS Department | |||||||
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Anant Balakrishnan |  |
Bin Gu |  |
Maytal Saar-Tsechansky | ||
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Accounting Department
Gerhard Barone ACCOUNTING Ph.D.
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Gerhard Barone, a native of Philadelphia, comes to Texas via Alaska and Madison, Wisconsin, to join the McCombs School’s Department of Accounting as a tenure track professor.
Making the trek from the Midwest to become Lone Star Staters are Barone’s spouse, Sandra, and children, two and one-half year old Hannah, ten-month-old Jimmy, and Jackson, their lab pit bull mix.
Barone, 33, received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His area of specialty is the capital market effect of accounting information. At McCombs he will teach Financial Statement Analysis, a topic that has been much in the news of late. The graduate-level course is an MBA elective and fifth-year PPA and MPA course.
High on Barone’s research agenda will be how earnings quality affects the cost of capital.
He notes that recent legislation, like the SEC requirement that CEOs sign off on their company financial statement “is a step forward, especially if it restores investor confidence in the market. But you really would not need such a requirement, if the auditor had been doing his job in the first place.”
Barone, whose outdoor hobbies include running and hiking, looks forward to getting into water sports, as well as cooking. “I would love to learn how to make sushi.”
He also looks forward to getting into the Austin culture scene, discovering the many kid-related activities in Austin, and learning how to deal with the one major surprise in his move to Central Texas: the traffic.
Jeffrey Hales ACCOUNTING Ph.D.
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After attending school in the West and the East Coast, Jeffrey Hales, returns to Texas to begin his teaching career. Hales is a new professor in the Accounting Department, where his specialty will be experimental accounting, financial reporting and decision-making.
Hales, 30, received his B.A. and Masters’ from Brigham Young University and is scheduled to receive his Ph.D. from Cornell in late September.
“This is a big department, two or three times larger than Cornell’s, but the faculty is very supportive and I am very impressed and happy to be here. There is a feeling in some big (academic) departments that it is difficult to get to know people. But I do not feel that is the case here, people want to get to know you, there is no hiding away in your office,” he says.
An avid sports fan, the trim Hales exercises often, going to the gym four times weekly, as well as playing tennis, racquet ball, hiking and swimming as often as possible.
This fall he is teaching two sessions of ACCT 356, Financial Accounting: Concepts and Research.
He is not surprised by the size of the campus or the record number of student enrollment: “Things seem fairly well organized for a campus of this size, and they run pretty smoothly, but I do try and stay off the sidewalks during busy hours,” to avoid crowds, he says with a laugh.
One thing that does surprise the Midland native is his office. “It is much nicer than I thought it would be-it has windows. I didn’t expect that!”
Finance Department
Aydogan Alti FINANCE Ph.D.
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Aydogan Alti, a new member of the Finance Department, starts off his career at McCombs on a busy track: his first semester here, the tenure-track professor is teaching three sections of corporate finance, including an elective course for the five-year MPA course.
The native of Istanbul, Turkey received his B.A. in business administration from Bogazici University in his hometown, and his Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University.
Fresh from having defended his doctoral dissertation in financial economics, Alti, 28, this fall is teaching two sections of FIN 394.1, Advanced Corporate Finance, and one section of FIN 394.6, Special Topics in Corporate Finance, an elective in the MPA sequence.
“Coming from Carnegie, which is a very small campus of some 7,000 students, to a huge state university, I was surprised by the sheer size of the place. It does not really feel like a (student) population of 50,000. Things seem to be very efficient here,” he says. “I am enjoying getting to know my colleagues, especially in the department. I am very impressed with the quality of the faculty, and the fact that a rather large percent of the faculty seem to be about my age.”
Having been born and raised in Istanbul, with a population of 12 million, Alti says the hustle and bustle he sees on campus “is the first time since having come to the United States that I get a sense of the crowds like I did back home. But it is very nice here.”
With his busy teaching schedule, Alti has not yet had much of an opportunity to become acquainted with Austin. “But I can see that for its size, it is a very lively town. Having never been in the South before, I am very impressed with the area. Austin stands in pretty sharp contrast with the Northeast. People here are noticeably friendly. I like that.”
Alti is enjoying settling in and “I really look forward to the easy style of living here- I am 10 minutes from campus, which I like very much. And I greatly enjoy the idea of no more cold winters. (After Pittsburgh) I really look forward to enjoying the (Central Texas) weather.”
Management Department
Muir Macpherson MANAGEMENT Ph.D.
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Muir Macpherson joins the Management Department at McCombs after attaining his Ph.D. from the Wharton School of Business in Philadelphia.
After attaining his undergraduate degree at U.C. - Berkeley, Macpherson, 30, says he is used to the feel of a large public university, but is still surprised by the size of UT’s campus.
Macpherson is a native of Sonoma, California and notes that Austin “has a very similar feel to northern California. The mix of high-tech and eclectic atmosphere makes coming here feel very comfortable for me.”
Beginning in the spring semester, Macpherson will teach an undergraduate strategy course, MAN 374, Managerial Policy and Strategy.
His area of specialty is researching international strategy - looking at a business’s strategy from an international context.
“The focus today is not purely on the large domestics. Really, in this day, all size of businesses are affected by global competition. It’s not just the multinationals that are impacted by the international business environment,” he says.
Macpherson hopes to take full advantage of outdoor and water recreation opportunities in the Hill Country.
He enjoys white water rafting. One summer after college he worked as a white water rafting guide in the Grand Canyon. "But I had some trouble getting used to how they call Austin's Colorado River a lake. That one is hard to see."
Jeffrey Martin MANAGEMENT Ph.D.
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Boosting the entrepreneurship program and bringing a new perspective - how an organization can be innovative by introducing entrepreneurship into the corporate setting - is the task of Jeff Martin’s MGT 385.23 Entrepreneurship Process elective course in the Management Department this fall.
“I have substantially updated the course, with the idea of making it more broadly relevant for all MBAs, not just those who want to go out and start a business,” says Martin, 43. He secured his Ph.D. from Stanford in Management Science and Engineering.
“Much of the typical MBA education focuses on teaching students how to create value by being a better trustee of the corporation’s resources and driving efficiencies,” Martin explains. “I seek to present the other side of the story, where value is created through recombining resources to pursue new strategies. It’s the other part of the value equation: managing opportunity and the risk.”
Martin, the father of five, whose ages range from two to 13, lists fitness and outdoor activities among his hobbies.
“You have to be fit when you have five kids,” he jokes.
In addition to being a regular at the gym, he enjoys running, weight lifting, hiking and camping. He is involved in a local Boy Scout troop and he also enjoys reading, everything from science fiction to biographies and historical fiction.
Growing up a Navy brat, he says California was home, but he has lived on both coasts.
“I had heard that the university and Austin were great places to work and live, and it has exceeded my expectations in all areas. My family is really loving it here.”
He is impressed with the “openness that exists, both from my colleagues who have welcomed me warmly, and from neighbors who bring cookies, fresh baked loaves of bread and show a willingness to lend a hand, even before asked.”
Stewart Miller MANAGEMENT Ph.D.
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Stewart Miller obtained his Ph.D. in strategic management with a concentration in international business finance and economics from Indiana University. He earned his bachelor and masters degrees from Northwestern University. Most recently, he spent three years on the faculty at Michigan State University.
“It is a wonderful opportunity to work with such a highly regarded group of scholars. My new Longhorn colleagues have made me feel very welcome,” Stewart comments.
His research specialty is the internationalization process and the cost of doing business abroad. This spring semester he will teach strategic management in the MBA program.
He and his family are settling in and adjusting to the Austin heat.
“It’s been a pleasant surprise. We like the rolling hills and the beautiful scenery (of the Hill Country). Having been born and raised in Chicago, I am quite used to the big city, and what I am finding is that Austin has great character and food. It’s no wonder that Austin is such a highly rated city in which to live,” he notes.
As a former baseball pitcher at Northwestern, Stewart was quite pleased to follow the Longhorns’ and Coach Augie Garrido’s drive that ended with the team winning the College Baseball World Series last season. He promises not to throw too many curves at his MBA students this year.
He enjoys running, but plans to take up cycling, since he is in “Lance Armstrong country.”
MSIS Department
Anant Balakrishman MSIS Ph.D.
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Anant Balakrishnan, who has taught at Purdue, Penn State and MIT, joins the McCombs MSIS faculty as the McCombs Endowed Chair in Business.
A native of India, he received his Ph.D. from MIT in 1985. His specialties are in operations, supply chain management and telecommunications.
Balakrishnan, 47, is teaching MIS 383, the Supply Chain Management course that is an MBA elective this fall.
A father of two girls - one in high school, the other an elementary student - Balakrishnan admits with a grin, “I have not very many hobbies outside of academia.”
After several years in the cold climate of Boston’s East Coast, he very much looked forward to his family’s move to the Southwest.
“Austin offers a lot of opportunity, both socially and culturally. I am very much impressed by the diversity of the city’s population. And, as I am very much a warm-weather person, I rather liked this summer’s weather.”
He anticipated his move to the university, having gotten to know a number of his colleagues in both the MSIS and in the Management Departments because of earlier collaborations in scholarly research.
“The business school as a whole and my department have a very distinguished faculty that is quite highly regarded, so it is both an opportunity and a challenge for me to come to the university.”
Coming from a much smaller institution, MIT, Balakrishnan says that, “Teaching at a university of this size, presents challenges. With a large student body, it is hard to interact on a one-on-one basis. But I see promising opportunities that are boundary expanding, and the breadth of the institution helps quite a bit. The diversity and talent of the faculty is something that will be of great benefit to the students.”
Bin Gu MSIS Ph.D.
Jeffrey Martin MANAGEMENT Ph.D.
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Managing information - not simply seeking a lower price for an online good, but getting more detail on the differing type of products available - will be the focus of Bin Gu’s MIS 380N2, core course in the MBA Management Information System program this fall.
Gu, 28, later in September defends his Operations and Information Management Ph.D. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Gu, who received his B.A. from Jiaotong University in Shanghai,- the same place where the current president of the People’s Republic of China graduated, notes in his thesis, “The Invisible Hand of the Internet: product information and economics of e-commerce,” that only about 1% of internet product searches relate to trying to find the lowest priced good. His research is in information strategy systems and the economic impact of online information.
Gu first heard of Austin and the university from a former supervisor, the managing partner of Arthur Andersen for the Greater China region. Gu then decided he would look into the possibility of coming to teach here.
A number of in-state friends have told him of the many cultural opportunities that abound in Austin and of the advantages of living in Central Texas over Houston or Dallas.
“I did not then expect to be here, but now that I am, I am most impressed with how very friendly people here are, from students to faculty,” he says.
Gu says his hobbies include traveling, hiking, swimming and cooking. He looks forward to experiencing the region’s Mexican food, he says with a grin.
“This is a big, diverse campus, but for me, it does not have the feel of a large, sprawling one.”
Maytal Saar-Tsechansky MSIS Ph.D.
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Maytal Saar-Tsechansky, fresh from the Stern School of Business at NYU, where she received her Ph.D., will be “mining for data” in an MSIS Department course she will teach in the fall.
The youngest daughter of a Jewish Iraqi father and a Romanian mother, the Israeli native will be teaching both an MBA elective and an undergraduate-level course on extracting useful information and distilling strategic information from databases.
Saar-Tsechansky, 32, expects that the sections will have differing perspectives: “I believe the MBAs will want a little bit more hands-on material, and probably will have insights from their own experiences, while the undergrads will likely have less of a preconception of what data mining is about.”
After having spent five years in New York, Saar-Tsechansky is eager to explore the Austin theater and art scene.
“I very much love theater,” says the classical music-playing pianist, “and I am very curious and look forward to having an opportunity to explore the special flavor of the theater and arts here, that is very different from New York, but seems very, very interesting.”
She was surprised at what she found when she first arrived in Austin this summer.
“I had been told this was a small town, that’s how limited my view was (of the region), but I find a very varied, interesting population that has the level of activity of a metropolitan area.”
And she was impressed at how the university “is what I would have imagined as a typical campus setting, not a bunch of buildings scattered about like the urban setting at NYU. I am seeing student life for the first time -- with the crowd of students all over the sidewalks here - and very friendly, interesting people, it has all been very educational to me. It seems like the campus reflects the celebration of acquiring knowledge, it’s a very nice phenomena to experience.”
For information on specific programs at the McCombs School, consult our contacts page. For media information, contact the Communications Director by phone at 512-471-3314 or by email at CommunicationsDirector@mccombs.utexas.edu.
