2025 Faculty Research Report

In April, Yoon Ju Kang, PhD, associate professor of accounting and the Richard Dieter MS ‘66 and Susan C. Dieter Endowed Faculty Fellow, was named as the new KPMG Faculty Fellow—a prestigious appointment that deepens her ongoing work on auditor decision making in an evolving professional landscape. The recognition not only honors Kang’s scholarly contributions but also underscores Isenberg’s prominence in audit behavioral research.

Building on her expertise she has developed through her research, Kang will, in her new role as KPMG Faculty Fellow, work with the firm’s U.S. Department of Professional Practice. This collaboration between theory and practice will offer her the opportunity to explore pressing issues in the field alongside leading professionals.

When the Bank of England adopted a new tool to monitor financial market risk earlier this year, its foundation came not from a government agency or a think tank, but from the research of Isenberg Finance Professor Fousseni Chabi-Yo, PhD.

A specialist in asset pricing and empirical financial econometrics, Chabi-Yo developed a novel, forward-looking measure of the equity risk premium (ERP) that now plays an active role in how the bank assesses financial stability. Building on his ERP work, he recently published an intertemporal risk factor model in Management Science that expands the understanding of how equity risk evolves over time.

Muzzo Uysal, PhD, professor in the Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management at the Isenberg School of Management and Carney Family Endowed Professor, is redefining the purpose and impact of tourism. Recently appointed president of the International Academy for the Study of Tourism (IAST), Uysal continues to champion research that advances tourism as a vehicle for quality of life, sustainability, and cultural understanding.

While his academic journey began with a degree in accounting and business administration, Uysal was drawn to the social sciences, their application to tourism and hospitality, and their impact on economic development, cultural exchanges, and community well-being. And, as IAST president, he is committed to advancing a better understanding of tourism.

In elite consulting firms where the pressure to perform never eases, balancing work with a personal life can feel like an impossible goal. New research from Emily Heaphy, PhD, professor of management and John F. Kennedy Faculty Fellow, however, suggests there’s a powerful, under-the-radar alternative to the nonstop hustle.

Heaphy has explored how consultants at a prestigious global firm managed to succeed professionally and personally without burning out or damaging their reputations. Their findings, recently published in Organization Science, reveal a surprising network of what they call “sustainable workers” who quietly—yet effectively—operate under the radar.

Nicknames are, for the most part, a sign of affection. From “Mickey D’s” to “HoJo,” consumers frequently assign pet names to the brands they love—casual, familiar terms that reflect endearment and connection. But when companies co-opt those nicknames and start using them in their own marketing, the outcome, according to new research by Isenberg Professor Matt Thomson, PhD, is rarely positive.

To explore this phenomenon, Thomson conducted a series of studies using real brands and real-world data and found that when companies use their own nicknames in marketing campaigns, it tends to backfire. He integrates these findings—which were reported on by The Wall Street Journal—into his undergraduate market research class, using the studies to teach Isenberg students the value of experiments and the importance of fieldwork.

At a time when digital platforms influence nearly every aspect of consumer decision making, Isenberg Assistant Professor of Operations and Information Management Zhanfei Lei, PhD, is uncovering how consumers process and respond to the user-generated content that shapes their choices—especially online reviews.

Professor Lei’s research focuses on the hidden biases and automatic judgments that occur in digital environments. This interest began with a fascination with user-generated content (UGC); during her master’s program, she analyzed trending Twitter (now X) topics using topic modeling, a text-mining technique used to scan a collection of text and automatically group words into themes. That project laid the foundation for her later doctoral work exploring online word-of-mouth, specifically how product reviews influence purchasing decisions.

Katie Sveinson, PhD, associate professor and Charles J. Dockendorff Endowed Faculty Fellow in Isenberg’s Mark H. McCormack Department of Sport Management, is redefining what it means to be a sport fan—and who gets counted in the first place.

A longtime fan of Formula 1, football, and tennis, Sveinson’s academic interest in fandom was born from her own experiences. But her research delves deeper, beyond passion, into the complexities of fan behavior, identity, and inclusion. 

Sveinson’s work focuses on uncovering dominant assumptions about fandom and offering fresh insights into how sport consumers experience and interpret the world around them.