Faculty

Originally from Houston, Nancy is a proud Texas Ex (B.A., 1998) who is thrilled to be back on the forty acres, teaching at her alma mater (Hook ‘em!). She earned her Ph.D. from Arizona State University in 2011, and is known for her research on retail and service marketing with a focus on frontline employee-customer interactions. Her latest research projects are aimed at encouraging consumer health and well-being and improving the patient experience.

Taylor Bentley is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at McCombs School of Business. Professor Bentley received both an MBA and PhD from the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis. In 2014 Professor Bentley was selected as a Fellow for the AMA-Sheth Doctoral Consortium at Northwestern University. Professor Bentle's substantive research interests include online advertising, digital media advertising, sales force management, new product design, and healthcare. His methodological research interests include dynamic structural models, empirical I.O., search models, and choice models.

Jade S. DeKinder is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at The University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business. Dr. DeKinder received her Bachelor’s degree in Economics with highest honors from Emory University and her PhD in Marketing from Emory University's Goizueta Business School. Her research interests include market signaling, information asymmetry and uncertainty in buyer-seller relationships, salesforce compensation, and econometric modeling.

Jason Duan is an Associate Professor of Marketing at McCombs School of Business. Professor Duan received a Master's degree in Economics from Duke University and a PhD in Statistics from Duke University. Professor Duan held a Postdoctorate Associate in Marketing position at Yale University prior to joining McCombs. Professor Duan's research interests include digital marketing, user generated content, spatial market, database marketing, retailing, Bayesian and nonparametric statistics, structural econometric models, dynamic models, spatio-temporal statistics, duration models, point processes, and event history analysis.

Professor Andy Gershoff earned an MBA and a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin and went on to teach at Columbia University and the University of Michigan. Andy has won both MBA and Ph.D. level teaching awards and has taught courses on marketing research, consumer behavior, services marketing, and the core MBA marketing management course. His research and writing has been published in Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Marketing Letters, and the Financial Times. Andy also works as a consultant and executive educator on issues related to marketing, marketing research, and marketing education. He has worked in the U.S., Spain, China, Kazakhstan, Croatia, Turkey, and Egypt for numerous clients including IBM, Pfizer, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, and USAID.

Ty Henderson is an assistant professor in the Marketing Department. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, after experiencing the dot-com boom at two start-ups. His research interests include sales promotion and branding strategy in the context of public goods, non-compensatory choice, Bayesian econometric methods and behavioral measurement technologies. His research has appeared in Marketing Science and Journal of Marketing.

Professor Julie Irwin joined the faculty in 1999 following her previous faculty appointments at the Stern School of Business at New York University and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (visiting appointment). She received her Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from the University of Colorado and post-doctoral training in the Quantitative Psychology division of the Psychology Department at the University of Illinois. Prof. Irwin serves on the Editorial Boards of Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, and Journal of Economic Psychology. She served as a Guest Editor at Journal of Consumer Psychology in 1999 and recently served as an Associate (action) Editor at Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. Prof. Irwin has published over thirty refereed journal articles and book chapters and has served as a Principle Investigator on two National Science Foundation grants. Her primary research interest is in consumer decision making, especially about issues invoking emotion, ethics, and/or risk. She also has an ongoing research interest in methodology and scaling.

Dr. Kapil Jain is the Assistant Chair and a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Marketing at the McCombs School of Business. He teaches graduate courses in Marketing Management, and New Product Design and Marketing and an undergraduate course in E-tailing and Multi-channel Retailing. He also teaches in the Executive MBA program and has developed custom new product development and marketing courses for Motorola, Texas Instruments, Beijing Electric, LG Electronics, and Essilor. Dr. Jain's research and teaching interests are focused on the areas of marketing research, new product design, and consumer information processing. His research has been presented at various national and international forums including conferences of the European Marketing Academy, the Association of Consumer Research, and The Institute of Marketing Science. As the founder of Marketing Intelligence, LLC, a Tucson-based firm engaged in marketing research and strategy consulting, Dr. Jain has consulted for numerous organizations including Long Realty, Arizona Department of Transportation, University of Arizona, City of Tucson, and the City of Phoenix. Kapil has degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Marketing from India, along with an M.Phil. and Ph.D. in Marketing from Columbia University.

Sandy Leeds, CFA is a Distinguished Senior Lecturer at the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin. He teaches graduate level classes in the MBA program and also serves as President of The MBA Investment Fund, L.L.C. Prior to teaching, he had careers as a lawyer and a money manager. He did his undergraduate work at The University of Alabama and also has a law degree from The University of Virginia and an MBA from the University of Texas. At UT, he has received many teaching awards, including Outstanding Professor in the MBA Program. He is married and has three children.

Raghunath Rao is an Associate Professor and Clark Centennial Fellow in Business at McCombs School of Business. Professor Rao received an MS in Applied Economics and a PhD in Business Administration, both from the University of Minnesota. His research interests include information asymmetry and bounded rationality issues in marketing in relation to substantive topics like pricing, sales management and innovation, often in the context of durable goods markets. His research has been published in the leading journals like Management Science, Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science and the Journal of Marketing.

Professor Garrett Sonnier holds a Master of Environmental Management degree from Duke University and a PhD in Marketing from UCLA Anderson School of management. He has a multitude of industry experiences including consulting projects and a Strategic Planning and Research Manager position at Toyota Motor Sales, USA Inc.’s Corporate Planning Division. In this position Professor Sonnier constructed models of consumer behavior, focusing on pricing, brand and customer loyalty issues as well as managed demand forecast for electric and hybridelectric vehicles in California. Professor Sonnier’s research interests are in bayesian methods and brand management.

Raji Srinivasan is a professor in the Department of Marketing and a Spurgeon Bell Centennial Fellow. She received her Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Srinivasan’s expertise centers on organizational innovation and marketing metrics, including such topics as new product development, market entry and exit strategies, and the financial performance of firms.

Dr. Stephen Walls received his BBA in Marketing from Texas A&M University and his MBA and Ph.D. from The University of Texas at Austin. He teaches a wide range of marketing courses in McCombs' undergraduate and graduate programs, including Principles of Marketing, Strategic Brand Management, Customer Insights & Experiences, Integrated Marketing Communications, and Marketing Policies. Dr. Walls also teaches Advanced Marketing Management in the Masters in Engineering Management program through the Cockrell School of Engineering's Center for Lifelong Engineering Education. He has received numerous teaching awards, including placement on The Faculty Honor Roll, Senior Send-off Favorite Professor, and Texas Blazer's Professor Appreciation, among others. His varied industry experience includes marketing, human resources, and technology management at companies such as Dell, Vignette, ibooks.com, American Airlines, and Wal-Mart. Dr. Walls speaks often on various topics related to marketing strategy and tactics, design-thinking for business innovation, branding, social media, and intergenerational marketing and management.

Professor Adrian Ward is an assistant professor of Marketing at McCombs School of Business. Professor Ward holds a Masters degree and PhD in Psychology from Harvard University. In his highly respected research, Professor Ward uses methods from cognitive and social psychology, as well as insights gleaned from "big data," empirical modeling, behavioral economics, machine learning, and whatever else he can get his hands on to investigate consumer behavior and decision-making. His work is primarily focused on: (1) consumer financial decision-making, (2) how "new" technology affects the outputs of "old" cognitive systems, and (3) flexible morality and mind-perception. In each of these areas, his goal is to understand human behavior "in the wild." He wants to understand why people do the things they do, as they actually do them--and, perhaps, to help them do these things just a little bit better.

Kevin Williams develops and teaches graduate courses at the McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin, where he has received several awards for teaching. He has also taught at the McCoy College of Business Administration, Texas State University, San Marcos. Mr. Williams was a Venture Partner with ARCH Venture Partners from 1999 to 2005 where he was involved in seed and early-stage technology investing. Previously, Williams was the COO of Sandefer Capital Partners, a private equity fund. He took an active role in deal evaluation, due diligence, negotiation of terms, and the management of portfolio companies at both funds. Prior to that, Williams was founder and CEO of Zeoponics, Inc., a NASA biotechnology spin-off. Preceding his entrepreneurial and investment activities, Mr. Williams spent 14 years in various marketing and business development positions with Rockwell International and Texas Instruments. Williams has an M.B.A in Technology Management and Entrepreneurship from the University of Texas at Austin and a B.B.A. in Information Systems and Accounting from the University of North Texas. His research interests include entrepreneurship, innovation and value creation.