This upcoming academic year, the Wharton School will welcome 20 new faculty members. These brilliant minds are leading experts in a wide range of fields, including business, social science, finance, economics, public policy, management, marketing, statistics, real estate, and operations.
One of the most exciting additions to the Wharton community was announced in May when Angela Duckworth joined the School’s faculty. She brought with her an impressive list of accomplishments: Harvard grad. Oxford grad. Penn grad. MacArthur Fellow. Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania. Founder and CEO of Character Lab, a nonprofit that uses psychological science to help children thrive. Faculty co-director of Wharton People Analytics. Faculty co-director of the Behavior Change for Good Initiative. The list goes on.
And now as the inaugural recipient of the Rosa Lee and Egbert Chang Professorship at the University of Pennsylvania, she holds a dual professorship appointment at Wharton and Penn’s Arts and Sciences’ Department of Psychology.
She’s also a leading expert on “grit,” the intangible quality that motivates us to keep going, and what factors can predict long-term success. As she says in her New York Times bestselling book, “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance” and her 2013 TED Talk with nearly 20 million views, “the secret to outstanding achievement is not talent but a special blend of passion and persistence.” Indeed, her research on resilience has never felt more relevant, as we all strive to stay safe and sane during the COVID-19 pandemic. In that regard, Prof. Duckworth shared some words of wisdom.
“There’s a lot we can’t control these days, many reasons to be frustrated, and much to worry about in the near and distant future,” she said. “Without ignoring reality, gritty individuals tend to focus on what is in their power to change, so I recommend hunting for small ways you can wrest some control and bring order and satisfaction to your life.”
She said, “For instance, my husband started making our bed every morning. I started calling my mom every time I go out for a (socially distanced) walk. And both of us think of three things each day for which we’re grateful.”
This spring, Prof. Duckworth spearheaded a new course called Grit Lab: Fostering Passion and Perseverance, which was open to undergraduate students in all four Penn schools. The course was designed to help students find their passion, explore new skills, and develop perseverance.
Duckworth said she is happy with how the course went, and that she’ll be teaching Grit Lab again in the fall. Moving forward, she’ll continue to be the faculty co-director for the Behavior Change for Good Initiative, as well as for Wharton People Analytics.
In regard to adding “Wharton faculty member” to her long list of accolades, she had this to say: “I’m thrilled! So many Wharton faculty are on the cutting edge of behavioral science.”
We couldn’t agree more. Get to know the newest faces who will be instructing students this fall.
Business Economics & Public Policy
Susanna Berkouwer, Assistant Professor of Business Economics & Public Policy
Expertise and research interests: Energy and environmental economics in emerging markets
Wharton initiatives she’s joining: Wharton Business, Climate and Environment Lab
Former positions: Research Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government. Harvard University; Analyst at Citibank
Education: She holds a PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.
Alex Rees-Jones, Associate Professor with Tenure of Business Economics & Public Policy
Expertise and research interests: Behavioral economics and integrating psychology into economic policy analysis.
Former positions: Rees-Jones is a former Wharton faculty member. He was Assistant Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions at Wharton before leaving to teach at Cornell University as an Associate Professor of Economics. He returns to Wharton now as an Associate Professor with Tenure of Business Economics & Public Policy.
Education: He holds a PhD in Economics from Cornell University.
Finance
Gideon Bornstein, Assistant Professor of Finance
Expertise and research interests: Macroeconomics and international economics
Former positions: Postdoctoral Research Associate in the International Economics Section at Princeton University; former Israeli Air Force captain
Education: He holds a PhD in Economics from Northwestern University.
Daniel Garrett, Assistant Professor of Finance
Expertise and research interests: Microeconomic theory, industrial organization and regulatory economics
Former positions: Professor at Toulouse School of Economics in Toulouse, France
Education: He’s expected to graduate with a PhD in Economics from Duke University this year.
Marius Guenzel, Assistant Professor of Finance
Expertise and research interests: Corporate finance, behavioral finance, and organizational economics
Education: He’s expected to graduate this year with a PhD in Finance from the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley.
Sasha Indarte, Assistant Professor of Finance
Expertise and research interests: Macroeconomics, household finance and financial intermediation
Former positions: Assistant Professor of Finance and Economics at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University; Associate Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Education: She holds a PhD in Economics from Northwestern University.
Thomas Winberry, Assistant Professor of Finance (Effective January 1, 2021)
Expertise and research interests: Macroeconomics, monetary economics, computational economics
Former positions: Associate Professor at the Booth School of Business, University of Chicago; Consultant to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago from 2017-2020
Education: He holds a PhD in Economics from Princeton University.
Yao Zeng, Assistant Professor of Finance
Expertise and research interests: Asset pricing, corporate finance, financial markets, banking, and venture capital
Former positions: Assistant Professor at the Foster School of Business, University of Washington
Education: He holds a PhD in Economics from Harvard University.
Health Care Management
Diane Alexander, Assistant Professor of Health Care Management (Effective January 1, 2021)
Expertise and research interests: Health economics, public economics, and labor economics
Former positions: Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Education: She holds a PhD in Economics from Princeton University.
Alexander Olssen, Assistant Professor of Health Care Management
Expertise and research interests: Industrial organization, health economics, and public finance
Education: He’s expected to graduate this year with a PhD in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Management
Natalie Carlson, Assistant Professor of Management
Expertise and research interests: Entrepreneurship, digital platform work, and other forms of nontraditional employment, with a particular focus on emerging economies
Education: She’s expected to graduate this year with a PhD in Management from Columbia Business School, Columbia University.
Saerom (Ronnie) Lee, Assistant Professor of Management
Expertise and research interests: Start-ups, entrepreneurship, innovation, how firms adapt to disruptive changes, organizational structure, and managerial cognition
Former positions: Sergeant in the Korean Augmentation to the United States Army (KATUSA)
Education: He’s expected to graduate this year with a PhD in Strategy from the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan.
Michael Parke, Assistant Professor of Management
Expertise and research interests: Workplace culture, employee emotions, creativity and effectiveness
Former positions: Assistant Professor of Organisational Behaviour at London Business School
Education: He holds a PhD in Organizational Behavior from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland.
Tiantian Yang, Assistant Professor of Management
Expertise and research interests: Entrepreneurship, careers, organizational theory, economic sociology, gender and race
Former positions: Assistant Professor of Sociology at Duke University
Education: She holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Marketing
Zhenling Jiang, Assistant Professor of Marketing
Expertise and research interests: Financial decision-making, how technology improves financial inclusion, online search, and loyalty programs
Former positions: Assistant Professor at J. Mack Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University
Education: She holds a PhD in Marketing from Olin Business School, Washington University.
Operations, Information, and Decisions
Dean Knox, Assistant Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions
Expertise and research interests: Networks, audiovisual data, and media; building quantitative models for new forms of social science data like racialized policing in the US and Sunni-Shia relations in the Middle East
Wharton initiatives he’s joining: Analytics at Wharton
Former positions: Assistant Professor at Princeton University; Postdoctoral Researcher at Microsoft Research
Education: He holds a PhD in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Daniel Rock, Assistant Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions
Expertise and research interests: Impact of technology on workers, firms, markets, and the economy
Former positions: Post-Doctoral Researcher at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy
Education: He holds a PhD from the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Real Estate
Sophie Calder-Wang, Assistant Professor of Real Estate
Expertise and research interests: Innovations in the housing market, diversity in innovation, and women in venture capital
Education: She’s expected to graduate this year with a PhD in Economics from Harvard University.
Statistics
Eugene Katsevich, Assistant Professor of Statistics
Expertise and research interests: Genomics and genomes
Former positions: Post-Doctoral Researcher at Carnegie Mellon University; Research intern on the 23andMe computational biology team in 2018
Education: He holds a PhD in Statistics from Stanford University.
— Emily O’Donnell
Posted: August 17, 2020
