The following individuals officially joined the college:
Dr. Yi Duan joined the college as a tenure-track assistant professor of economics in the Division of Finance, Economics, and International Business. Prior to his position at Marshall, Duan worked as a visiting assistant professor of economics at Valparaiso University in Indiana. She received her Ph.D. degree in economics from the University of Oklahoma in 2017. Her primary research fields are economic development, applied macroeconomics and spatial analysis. Duan has published an article on foreign direct investment and productivity in World Development, a top journal in development economics. She has taught courses in macroeconomics, microeconomics, statistics, development economics and international economics.
Dr. Bo Feng joined the college as the tenure-track assistant professor of economics and director of the Center for Business and Economic Research. Before coming to Marshall, he worked at The Ohio State University as a research associate for the C. William Swank Program in Rural-Urban Policy. He recently earned his Ph.D. degree from the Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics at The Ohio State University. He received his bachelor’s degree in finance from Shanghai Jiao Tong University (Shanghai, China), and an M.S. degree in economics from the University at Buffalo-SUNY. His research focuses on state and local fiscal policies and regional development programs. His interests also include related topics such as persistent poverty, intergenerational mobility, migration and education. Feng also worked as an assistant research fellow in Urban Economy Institute at Central University of Finance and Economics in Beijing, China. As a researcher in China, he conducted extensive studies on the strategic planning of local economic development, and advised local governments on various issues regarding development strategies.
Monisha Gupta joins the college as an instructor of marketing. She has over 20 years of experience in the service industry ranging from advertising, hospitality and retail to consulting and operating sales franchisee. Additionally, she has worked in product management, direct selling, research, forecasting and planning. In her business career, she has been involved with the development and launch of new products, as well as setting up supply chains for existing products. Some of the organizations Gupta has worked for include Dabur India, Taj Group of Hotels, Fabindia, J. Walter Thompson India, and Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising. She has completed master’s degrees in business economics philosophy from India and is currently working on her Ph.D.
Dr. Kevin Knotts joined the college as a tenure-track assistant professor of human resource management and organizational behavior in the Division of Management and Health Care Administration. Originally from Keyser, West Virginia, he received his Ph.D. in management and his M.B.A. from West Virginia University. His teaching and research interests lie in leadership, human resources and organizational behavior. Knotts has published two peer-reviewed journal articles – one in the Journal of Leadership and Management, and another in the Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal. He has another five working papers at various stages of manuscript development and submission. He has presented his research at the Western Academy of Management and Southern Management Association. He is a member of the Academy of Management and the Southern Management Association. He has taught a variety of courses at West Virginia University, including fundamentals of human resource management and survey of management.
Dr. Boniface Yemba joins the college as a tenure-track assistant professor of international business in the Division of Finance, Economics, and International Business. Prior to his position at Marshall, Yemba worked at Clarion University of Pennsylvania, where he worked as a visiting assistant professor of economics for three years. He holds master’s and Ph.D. degrees in economics from the University of Kansas. His teaching and research are in the fields of international economics, macroeconomics, monetary economics and econometrics. Yemba was born and grew up in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in economics and business from the University of Kinshasa. He has taught courses in macroeconomics, microeconomics, labor economics, quantitative analysis for business and global environment for business.
Dr. Jingran Zhang joins the college as a tenure-track assistant professor of supply chain and business analytics in the Division of Management and Health Care Administration. Zhang earned both doctoral and master’s degrees in industrial engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), and a bachelor’s degree in safety engineering from China Jiliang University in China. Her research focuses on the performance advantage of innovative operation systems for online retailing and warehousing using fast and intelligent supply chains. She is also interested in big data analysis and decision-making research questions related to manufacturing, fast fashion and health care. She has three publications in leading journals such as International Journal of Production Economics, International Journal of Production Research and Production Planning and Control.
To learn more about the faculty in the Marshall University Lewis College of Business, visit https://www.marshall.edu/cob/faculty-staff-directory-profiles/.
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Photos: (From top left, clockwise) Dr. Yi Duan, Dr. Bo Feng, Monisha Gupta, Dr. Kevin Knotts, Dr. Boniface Yemba and Dr. Jingran Zhang have joined Marshall University’s Lewis College of Business.