Leeds Welcomes Dynamic New Faculty Across Divisions, Expanding Academic Excellence

Leeds continues to strengthen its reputation for academic excellence with an impressive cohort of new faculty members starting this fall. 

Tenure-track faculty bring cutting-edge research and global expertise

Danielle Bovenberg, assistant professor of SEO, joins Leeds from the Yale School of Management, where she was a postdoctoral associate. She earned her PhD at UC Santa Barbara in 2023, focusing on technology management. Leeds’ “unique position at the intersection of innovation and entrepreneurship” drew her to the school.

“The Strategy and Entrepreneurship faculty bring diverse perspectives to studying innovation, creating an intellectually rich environment that really excites me,” Bovenberg said. “These strengths are further enhanced by our location in Boulder’s Front Range, where we're surrounded by world-class research institutions like NREL and NIST, alongside a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem.”

Bovenberg sees these factors perfectly aligned with her research, which explores how innovation happens at the frontiers of science and technology. She focuses on how skilled professionals collaborate to solve complex technical challenges.

Sebastian Schuetz, assistant professor of OLIA, was similarly drawn to Leeds by the opportunity to collaborate with “exceptional faculty” whose work he has long admired. He holds a PhD in information systems from the City University of Hong Kong.

Schuetz’s research centers on cybersecurity, particularly how leadership and management influence cybersecurity outcomes at both individual and organizational levels. He has designed curriculum on cybersecurity leadership, digital transformation, data visualization, and enterprise resource planning.

In 2023, he received the Best Reviewer Award from MIS Quarterly, the leading journal in the field. He also developed a research-backed education app that helps students retain course concepts—which he describes as “Duolingo for college courses.”

Mu-Jeung (MJ) Yang, assistant professor of Entrepreneurship and Strategy, left a tenured position at the University of Oklahoma to join Leeds. He earned his PhD in economics from UC Berkeley and cited the collegial atmosphere and strong scholarship in entrepreneurship and strategy at CU Boulder as key motivators for him to come to Leeds.

Yang’s research interests include scientific approaches to entrepreneurship and venture capital, AI and data-driven decision-making, and transformative innovations. His co-authored research work includes interviews with CEOs of major corporations and startups, and collaborations with the state of Utah on COVID-19 recovery and entrepreneurship field experiments.

“Outside of Leeds, I was very much attracted to the opportunities of understanding the local quantum computing ecosystem,” he added. 

Chenshan Hu, assistant professor of operations management, earned her PhD in supply chain, operations, and technology from the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis. Her research focuses on data-driven problems in platform operations, environmental sustainability and healthcare operations. She said she was “drawn to Leeds by the exceptional research being conducted by faculty in the department and their incredibly welcoming, collaborative spirit.” She added, “The school’s strong commitment to sustainability perfectly aligns with my research interests in sustainable operations and environmental impact of business practices.” 

Hu’s research focuses on sustainable operations, platform operations, healthcare operations, causal inference and structural estimation. Her teaching spans machine learning, operations management, data analytics and programming. 

She was the winner of the 2024 INFORMS BOM Best Working Paper Award. 

New teaching faculty enrich Leeds with industry experience and academic rigor

An robust group of assistant teaching professors and lecturers will round out Leeds’ academic offerings this year, bringing deep industry expertise and diverse academic backgrounds. Here is a snapshot of the new faculty, organized by division.

Accounting

Christine Kuglin, assistant teaching professor, is the director of the Truth in Accounting Program and adjunct professor at the University of Denver Daniels College of Business. She is an attorney and CPA.

Erik Olson, visiting assistant professor, earned his PhD in management from Yale University. His teaching interests center on financial accounting and real effects of accounting and disclosure.

Jason Patrick (Fin, MAcct’05), lecturer, is a CPA with 20 years of experience in corporate accounting, public accounting, tax, audit and consulting. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Denver Daniels College of Business.

Finance

Cari Clayton, assistant teaching professor, brings 25 years of commercial banking experience, with a primary focus on commercial real estate lending. She is the director of sponsor finance at Cross First Bank in Arizona and Colorado markets.

Maryls Raycraft, assistant teaching professor, is the managing director of Matter Family Office in Denver and is a licensed attorney, with extensive experience working with multigenerational family offices.

Peter Thrasher, associate teaching professor, is a real estate expert and educator. He also teaches at Colorado State University’s College of Business.

Marketing

Jason Dana is a visiting associate professor from Yale, where he teaches management and marketing.

Fiorentia Anglou, postdoctoral associate, focuses on environmental policy, food waste and empirical operations management. 

Pablo Slough, assistant teaching professor, is a digital economy entrepreneur and former Google executive.

Organizational Leadership and Information Analytics

Ellie Gates, assistant teaching professor, received her PhD in strategic leadership and foresight from Regent University. She was an associate professor of business at Nelson University.

Fairy Gandhi, assistant teaching professor, is a PhD candidate at Leeds. She earned her MS in business analytics at Leeds.

Manny Ramos, assistant teaching professor, has been a lecturer at Leeds and has held leadership roles in the US Army, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and GE Renewable Energy.

Professional Effectiveness

Audra Barber, assistant teaching professor, is a speech coach and program coordinator at the University of Colorado Josephine Jones Speaking Lab.

Wei (Julia) Cui, assistant teaching professor, earned her PhD in media and communication at Texas Tech University. She teaches business and public communication.

Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Operations

Yuchen Lu, assistant teaching professor, holds a PhD in applied mathematics and statistics from the University of Maryland. He was a lead data scientist at Bain & Company.