Spring 2023 Department Digest and Awards

Our faculty and staff are always doing amazing things. View the latest Department Digest to see what they have been up to and catch what they’re saying in the media.

Accounting

West Virginia University Accounting Department has been approved and recognized as a Foundation Level Internal Audit program with the Institute of Internal Audit's Education Partnership Program. The recognition lets students know that our program has a strong curriculum, and we have partnerships with employers for job and internship opportunities. It also helps attract more employers that are looking for internal audit and accounting majors. Learn more.

Congratulations to Christian Schaupp, professor of accounting, for being selected as a recipient of the 2023-25 Innovation, Design and Entrepreneurship Applied (IDEA) Faculty Fellowship – a multi-disciplinary initiative to bolster the culture of entrepreneurship and innovation at WVU. He is one of five who were chosen by the Office of the Provost. Read more.

Advising

Congratulations to Julia Broskey, a senior academic adviser for our Chambers College undergraduate programs, for being selected as a recipient of the Outstanding Honors Advisor Award for the 2022-23 academic year. She was nominated by Honors College students and ultimately selected by a committee from a strong pool of candidates. Get a full list of past recipients here.

Business Honors Program

Congrats to Li Wang, teaching associate professor and director of the Business Honors Program in the Chambers College, for winning the 2022-23 Nicholas Evans Faculty Advising Excellence Award from the Office of the Provost. She was one of four to receive this award for outstanding advising and mentoring provided by faculty and professional advisers at WVU.

Economics

Daniel Grossman, associate professor of economics, has been named a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Learn more.

Encova Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Tara St. Clair, program director for the Encova Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, was selected for Leadership WV Class of 2023.

Listen to Tara St. Clair, program director for the Encova Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, discuss fostering collaboration and connection while ecosystem building on the Buzzsprout Podcast, Entrepreneurship on the Rise. (To listen, hear Listen Now.)

Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Dr. Hyeonsuh Lee, Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship, received the Best Empirical Paper Award and the Best Overall Paper Award at the U.S. Association for Small Business & Entrepreneurship (USASBE) Annual Conference. The title of her paper was: “Many Hands Make Light Work: Why New Ventures in Nascent Industries Engage in Collaborative Experimentation.”

Finance

Dr. Gulnara R Zaynutdinova, associate professor of finance, won the Financial Review Best Paper Award. Read here.

Finance Assistant Professor Pawan Jain wrote a piece for The Conversation on the positives and perils of AI in the financial industry. Read here.

Global Supply Chain Management

Jeremy Roberts, teaching assistant professor, has been awarded the WVU Faculty Research and Scholarship Advancement (RSA) Seed Grant. The RSA Seed Grant is "support that is historically for projects that can be conceptualized in a few significant steps. An example of a Seed request may focus on activities that produce a journal article and can be completed within the funding period; almost always the outcome of a Seed project is used as pilot data or proof of concept for an external grant submission (federal, state, local, foundation)."

Management

Kayla Follmer, associate professor of management, will serve as the University’s first graduate student ombudsperson for the 2023-24 academic. She was selected by an internal, University-wide search committee this spring with representatives from the WVU Office for Graduate Education and Life and the Provost’s Office. Read here.

Olga Bruyaka, associate professor of management, was one of five WVU faculty members to have been named recipients of the University’s 2023-24 Big 12 Faculty Fellowship Program. Read here.

Marketing

Congratulations to Dr. Susan Lantz, teaching associate professor of marketing, for winning the Open Learning Educator Award for the State of West Virginia at the Open Learning Statewide Convening in Charleston.

The Knee Center for the Study of Occupational Licensing

The latest op-ed from Knee Center's Senior Research Fellow Dr. Matthew Mitchell was published in the Magnolia Tribune discussing how the state of Mississippi requires a certificate of need (CON) for more services and technologies than most CON states. Studies show that CON laws are linked to reducing access to care for individuals living in states that have those laws set in place.

Written by Knee Center director Dr. Edward Timmons and assistant director Conor Norris, '2023 can become the new year of licensing reform' published by The Washington Examiner, explores licensing reform that occurred in 2022, looks at the new year of 2023, and examines the potential for further reform throughout the country.

The paper titled: "Licensing should not be bigger in Texas: A roadmap for licensing reform" is written by Texas Public Policy Foundation's Rod Bordelon, and Dr. Vance Ginn, Ph.D., and Knee Center's director Dr. Edward Timmons and assistant director Conor Norris.

In a response to the physician shortage in Mississippi, Connor Norris explores the ability of nurse practitioners in the state to be granted full practice authority, and what effects this would have on the quality of care for Mississippians in a piece that was published through Empower Mississippi, titled: 'Nurse Practitioners and the Quality of Care'.

One of the Knee Center's research affiliates Dr. Darwyyn Deyo, wrote a policy brief on 'Licensing Barriers for Women in the Workforce'. This piece explores the data on licensing between women and men in the workforce, and potentially barriers this leads to.

The latest op-ed written by Knee Center research fellow Dr. Alicia Plemmons on prescriptive authority for pharmacists. The piece is titled: 'Pharmacists know all about medications, so why can’t they prescribe them?' published through Modern Healthcare.

The latest op-ed written by Knee Center director Dr. Edward Timmons and assistant director Conor Norris, takes a closer look at Virginia's migration woes and identifies the possible effects that SB 1213 could have for the old dominion state. Read here.

The latest op-ed published in The Montana Standard from Knee Center research fellow Dr. Alicia Plemmons, examines the potential benefits that could come from Montana's SB 112 relating to prescriptive authority. Read here.

The latest op-ed from Knee Center research affiliate Dr. Noah Trudeau, released through the Montgomery Advertiser. Dr. Trudeau examines the recently released State Occupational Licensing Index report published through Archbridge Institute. Read here.

The latest op-ed by Knee Center director Dr. Edward Timmons. Despite South Dakota ranking 49th out of 51 (where a higher ranking is better) in the recent Institute for Justice 'License to Work: 3rd Ed.' occupational licensing study, there are still professions in the 'Mount Rushmore State' that have more licensing requirements than other states. Take barbers for instance, as 26 states have lower requirements for barbers than South Dakota. Read here.

The latest op-ed from Knee Center director Dr. Edward Timmons, and research affiliate Dr. Noah Trudeau. The op-ed explores the burdensome licensing situation in Texas, as it ranks 2nd in the recently released State Occupational Licensing Index (SOLI) report, published through Archbridge Institute. Read here.

The latest report with Knee Center's Dr. Mitchell and Chris Denson (Director of Policy and Research with the Georgia Public Policy Foundation) examines the Certificate of Need regulations within the state of Georgia and provides a summary overview of CON and its effect on patients and healthcare providers. Read here.

Recently released op-ed by co authors Dr. Matthew Mitchell (Knee Center senior research affiliate & certificate of need coordinator), and Chris Denson (director of policy and research at Georgia Public Policy Foundation). The op-ed titled: 'Certificate of Need (CON) laws do not work as intended' examines the effects of CON laws, specifically in the state of Georgia. Read here.

The latest op-ed from Knee Center director Dr. Edward Timmons, and licensing scholar Dr. Morris M. Kleiner, examines occupational licensing regulations at the national level. Currently, over 1 in 5 U.S. workers are directly impacted by occupational licensing regulations. This number is up from 1 in 20 in the 1950's. Timmons and Kleiner assess the implications these regulations have on licensees in this op-ed published through The Washington Times.

Knee Center director Dr. Edward Timmons wrote an op-ed exploring additional health professional scope of practice measures the Beehive state could explore. The op-ed is titled: 'Should pharmacists and psychologists have the power to prescribe?' published in the Deseret News.

Vantage Ventures

Skypunch Technology, through its residency in Vantage Ventures (the startup accelerator born out of the John Chambers School of Business and Economics at West Virginia University) has partnered with a team of cybersecurity experts at West Virginia University (WVU) to begin conducting security reviews of its voting software. This red team, made up of undergrad and graduate level students under the direction of expert professors, will use the Skypunch platform to perform such exercises as penetration testing and audits against level 3 of the Open Web Application Security Project’s (OWASP) Application Security Verification Standards. Level 3 is reserved for critical infrastructure and other applications requiring the highest level of trust.

Vantage Ventures Founder and WVU NewStart Fellow Crystal Good was recently honored by the West Virginia Office of Broadband and West Virginia Engagement Council with a Champions of Connectivity Award - Digital Equity Certificate of Recognition for Black by God - for outstanding efforts in advancing digital equity and improving broadband infrastructure in West Virginia.

Huntington Bank, the 26th largest bank in the United States with over $179 billion in assets, has joined with Vantage Ventures to support present and future startups in West Virginia and across the region. Both organizations are striving to build a more inclusive and sustainable financial services industry that will diversify the economy by meeting the needs of underserved entrepreneurs. Vantage Venture’s social media and marketing teammate, Trevor Swiger, interviewed Chad Prather, President of Huntington National Bank’s West Virginia division, to gain further insight into these groundbreaking efforts for entrepreneurs building in new start-up ecosystems.

Fintech Sandbox co-founder and executive director of Vantage WV, Sarah Biller, has been named by American Banker as one of the "Most Influential Women in Fintech" and we couldn't agree more! Congrats to Biller and to all the other amazing individuals both on the list and nominated.