KU School of Business Faculty

mhbirch@ku.edu
(785) 864-7571
Capitol Federal Hall, room 3124

Education
Ph.D., University of Illinois
M.S., University of Illinois
B.S., New College

Academic Areas
Strategic Management and International Business
Trade and regional integration
Public sector management
Microfinance

Biography
Dr. Melissa Birch presented to the National Academy of Sciences on international business education and provided committee testimony to the Kansas legislature on the impact of international business on the Kansas economy. She has obtained nearly $4 million in competitive federal funding for international business program development and has successfully participated in university efforts to attract funding from private donors for international education initiatives.

Education
Retired Colonel, U.S. Army
Ph.D. Management, University of Phoenix
M.A., Management, Webster University
B.A., Mercer University

Academic Areas
Leadership

Biography
Dr. Steven Boylan as an associate professor in the Department of Command & Leadership, Command and General Staff College focusing on leadership instruction, as well as developing curriculum for 1,200 students on media and public affairs. He is co-author for core curriculum “Inform and Influence Activities” and author for Advanced Leadership, “Risk and Adaptability.” He manages annual national media panels conducted to help students gain a better understanding of media issues regarding the military. He is the author of numerous published articles. His work has appeared in the Journal of Leadership Education (JOLE), Military Review, the Small Wars Journal, Foreign Policy, and Military Times. Boylan’s published book reviews include “All In: The Education of General David Petraeus,” and “Leading the Narrative: A Case for Strategic Communication.” He retired from the U.S. Army as a colonel in 2010 having served in both Army Aviation and Public Affairs.

boone@ku.edu
785-864-9402
Capitol Federal Hall, Room 2165

Education
MBA, University of Kansas
B.A., University of Kansas

Academic Areas
Finance
Entrepreneurship

Biography
Boone Bradley has a background as an IT systems and network engineer before returning for his MBA studies, and has been involved in two successful start-up companies in the education technology industry. He is also an individual investor managing his own account.

amiicastle@ku.edu
785-864-6965
Capitol Federal Hall, Room 3123

Education
J.D., University of Kansas
B.G.S., University of Kansas

Academic Areas
Marketing and Business Law

Biography
Amii Castle served as a law clerk for three federal judges: Judge Pasco M. Bowman, Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals; District Judge Carlos Murguia, District of Kansas; and Chief Magistrate Judge James P. O’Hara, District of Kansas. In addition to clerking, she practiced law in the private sector, at both plaintiff and defense firms, specializing in commercial and class-action litigation in the Kansas City Metropolitan Area.

gjergji.cici@ku.edu
785-864-3873
Capitol Federal Hall, Room 4104

Education
Ph.D. in Finance, University of Minnesota
B.S. in Business Administration, University of Minnesota

Academic Areas
Finance
Behavior and incentives of professional money managers
Portfolio performance evaluation, formation and utilization of human capital
Agency issues in the asset management industry

Biography
Gjergji Cici is the Capitol Federal Professor of Finance at the University of Kansas School of Business. He also is a research fellow at the Centre for Financial Research at the University of Cologne, Germany. Prior to joining KU in 2018, he was the Thomas L. Owen Professor and associate professor of finance at the College of William & Mary. After receiving his Ph.D. in finance from the University of Minnesota, he became associate director of research for Wharton Research Data Services (WRDS) at the Wharton School of Business.

His research has been published in Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Review of Finance, Real Estate Economics, Journal of Financial Intermediation, and Journal of Banking and Finance, among others. Professor Cici's research has been discussed in various regulatory proposals related to the mutual fund industry and featured in more than 40 articles in the business press, including the Financial Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, Bloomberg, and Pensions & Investments.

kcrane@ku.edu
785-864-6964
Capitol Federal Hall, Room 2171

Education
Master of Business Administration, University of Kansas
Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, Baylor University

Academic Areas
Marketing and Business Law, Strategic marketing planning, Integrated marketing communications, Entertainment marketing, Faith-based marketing, Digital marketing and social media, Inbound and content marketing, Relationship and affinity marketing, Developing organizational marketing infrastructures and team-building, Higher education instruction and program management, Leadership and management, Project management and event planning

Biography
Kelly Crane began her career working in marketing in the music industry in Austin, Texas, and has since worked in director-level and vice president-level marketing roles with companies in a multitude of industries including entertainment, healthcare, telecommunications and advertising. She has more than 30 years of experience in advertising agencies, corporate environments, and the public sector.

She is the former director of the KU School of Journalism’s Integrated Marketing Communications graduate program where she taught relationship marketing and the program’s capstone course to working adult graduate students.

Currently, Crane is a freelance integrated marketing trainer, coach and consultant with an interest in entrepreneurship. In 2016, she founded the Creative Entrepreneurs of Kansas City Mastermind group to support women with entrepreneurial aspirations.

galindau@ku.edu
785-864-2889
Capitol Federal Hall, Room 3178

Education
MBA, University of Southern California
B.A., University of California

Academic Areas
Marketing and Business Law

Biography
Mr. Galindau has been teaching at the University of Kansas since 2005. A San Francisco native, Mr. Galindau spent his undergraduate years at UCLA and served in the U.S. Navy for four years before earning his MBA from the University of Southern California. Mr. Galindau's professional experience includes 20 years with the Hilti Corporation, a European manufacturer of construction tools, fasteners, and supplies; he spent 11 of these years working and living in the Asia Pacific region. During his time in Asia, Mr. Galindau served as the general manager for Hilti's South Korea organization for five years while living in Seoul. He spent six years as the president of Hilti's Asia Pacific region while living in Hong Kong. Mr. Galindau oversaw hundreds of employees and managed over $300 million in revenue, all while dealing with challenging situations related to the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s.

Mr. Galindau places a high premium on sharing his personal experiences and expertise in managing an organization internationally. He stresses the critical role of cultural intelligence and provides several specific examples of cross-cultural communication that he experienced as an American who worked 20 years for a European company in 11 countries in the Asia Pacific region.

arthall@ku.edu
785-864-5134
Capitol Federal Hall, Room 1030J

Education
Ph.D. in Economics, University of Georgia
B.A. in Economics, Emory University

Academic Areas
Finance
Economic growth
Economic development
Tax policy

Biography
Art Hall is the founding executive director of the Center for Applied Economics at the University of Kansas School of Business. Before joining the KU School of Business, Hall was chief economist in the public affairs group of Wichita, KS-based Koch Industries, Inc. In that capacity, he worked with business leaders to help define how public policy initiatives would influence the structure of the markets in which the company participates. Koch sponsored Hall’s directorship of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius’ Budget Efficiency Savings Teams from April 2003 until his departure from the firm in February 2004.

Before joining Koch Industries in May 1997, Hall was senior economist at Tax Foundation, based in Washington, D.C., where he produced quantitative and qualitative research pertaining to the economics of taxation and acted as an economic advisor to The National Commission on Economic Growth and Tax Reform. Before that, Hall worked as a financial economist at the U.S. General Accounting Office. Hall has taught university economics at both the undergraduate and MBA level. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Georgia and his B.A. in economics from Emory University.

hillmer@ku.edu
785-864-7549
Capitol Federal Hall, Room 3101

Education
Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison
M.A., University of Wisconsin-Madison
B.A., Drake University

Academic Areas
Analytics, Information and Operations Management

Biography
Steven Hillmer received his Ph.D. in business statistics from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1976. He has been at the University of Kansas School of Business since fall 1977. He spent the 1979–80 academic year at the United States Census Bureau doing research on the seasonal adjustment of economic time series. This research has impacted the seasonal adjustment methods currently used at the U. S. Census Bureau. He has received research grants from the U. S. Census Bureau and the National Science Foundation. His research interests are in the area of time series analysis, applied statistics, and quality management. Dr. Hillmer is an elected fellow of the American Statistical Association.

djisaac@ku.edu

Education:
Ph.D., University of Kansas
M.S., Kansas State University
B.S., Fresno State University

Academic Areas
Management and Entrepreneurship

Biography
Dr. Don Isaac is a lecturer at the University of Kansas School of Business. He teaches and researches in the area of organizational behavior. He received his M.S. degree from Kansas State University and Ph.D. from the University of Kansas. He has taught organizational behavior and Strategic Management in the online MBA program at Cal State University, Dominguez Hills for 14 years. For 24 years, he was professor and chair of the Business administration department, Tabor College, KS., as well as director of institutional research.

Issac is the author of several journal articles involving civic service and economic development.​ He grew up as a farm boy in the San Joaquin Valley, California, and continues to be involved in the peach/nectarine farm they own close to Fresno. He enjoys photography, fly fishing, restoring audio tapes in his music studio, and spending time with his Burmese cat.

midamkim@ku.edu
785-864-3838
Capitol Federal Hall, Room 3152

Education
Ph.D. in Linguistics, Northwestern University
M.A. in Linguistics, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea
B.A. in Linguistics, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea

Academic Areas
Management and Entrepreneurship
Communicative in business
Leadership efficiency and voice qualities
Global communication

Biography
Midam Kim, PhD is a research specialist and lecturer in the School of Business at the University of Kansas. She received her Ph.D. from Northwestern University, and her B.A. and M.A. from Seoul National University.

Her research interests lie at the intersection of linguistics and management. Her current research explores how the origin and gender of CEOs affect their leadership and how their speech, voice, and language use can mitigate the relationship.

steven.leonard@ku.edu
Capitol Federal Hall, room 1030L

Education
M.A. in Operational Planning, Army School of Advanced Military Studies
M.S. in Systems Management, Murray State University
B.S. in Engineering, University of Idaho

Academic Areas
Dean's Office

Biography
Steve Leonard serves as the director of assessments for the University of Kansas School of Business where he is an award-winning faculty member and chairs graduate programs in Organizational Leadership and Supply Chain Management. A former senior military strategist and the creative force behind the defense microblog, Doctrine Man!!, he is a career writer and speaker with a passion for developing and mentoring the next generation of thought leaders. He is a senior fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point, the co-founder of the national security blog, Divergent Options, and the podcast, The Smell of Victory, co-founder and board member of the Military Writers Guild, and a member of the editorial review board of the Arthur D. Simons Center’s Interagency Journal. Published extensively, his writing focuses on issues of foreign policy, national security, strategy and planning, leadership and leader development, and, occasionally, fiction. An alumnus of the School of Advanced Military Studies, he led the interagency team that authored the U.S. Army’s first operations doctrine, spearheaded the reintroduction of operational art into capstone doctrine, and wrote the guiding principles for the Army Design Methodology. He is the author, co-author, or editor of four books, numerous professional articles, countless blog posts, and is a prolific military cartoonist.

chanli@ku.edu
785-864-0921
Capitol Federal Hall, Room 4103

Education:
Ph.D. in Accounting, University of Kansas
M.S. in Management Information Systems, University of Akron
B.A. in Business English, Sichuan International Studies University, China

Biography
Dr. Chan Li’s primary research interest is in archival auditing, particularly in economic consequences of auditing, effects of regulation on the audit environment, auditor judgment and audit quality. Her teaching interests include financial accounting, auditing and accounting information systems. She has published over 20 articles in leading academic journals, including The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting Research, Journal of Accounting and

dmyer@ku.edu
(785) 864-4276
Capitol Federal Hall, room 3156

Education
Ph.D. in Marketing, University of Kansas
MBA, University of Kansas
B.B.A. in Management, Iowa State University

Academic Areas
MBA Programs and Marketing

Biography
Duane Myer has over 20 years of corporate finance and marketing experience with Hallmark Cards, The Federal Reserve, and Sprint. His research interests include strategic marketing management, return on marketing spending, sports marketing and sponsorships, and studying marketing management issues at the intersection of the corporate marketing and finance functions.

crosenfeld@ku.edu
786-864-3887
Capitol Federal Hall, Room 3114

Education
Ph.D. in Finance, University of Minnesota
B.S. in Business Administration, St. Joseph's University

Academic Areas
Finance

Biography
After receiving her undergraduate degree with a Finance and Math minor from Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia, Dr. Claire Rosenfeld worked for Anderson Consulting, now Accenture, as a business process analyst. She also served as a business process analyst in Turnaround Management at BDO. Rosenfeld subsequently returned to school and earned her Ph.D. in Finance from University of Minnesota. She wrote her dissertation on banking relationships: how companies affect banks and banks affect companies. Upon completing her degree, she was a financial economist for the FDIC for two years and then was an assistant professor at William & Mary's Raymond A. Mason School of Business for nine years where she taught Introduction to Finance in the undergraduate and part-time evening MBA programs. In fall 2018, she returned to her Midwestern roots and joined KU as a lecturer. She is now assistant area director and advisor to Women in Finance, an undergraduate student organization. She lives in Lawrence with her husband and two young boys.

bstaihr@ku.edu
785-864-2848
Capitol Federal hall, Room 4236

Education:
Ph.D. in Economics, Washington University in St. Louis
M.A. in Economics, Washington University in St. Louis
B.A. in Economics, University of Missouri-Kansas City

Academic Areas
Finance

Biography
Dr. Brian Staihr was formerly senior economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City; in that position he was heavily involved in the monetary policy decisions discussed at length in this course. He has also served as regulatory economist for several Fortune 500 companies in the telecommunications industry; in those positions he testified before the U.S. Congress on economic and competitive issues, as well as before the U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission. He has been teaching economics and finance classes to both undergraduates and graduate students for over 20 years.

dianawu@ku.edu
(785) 864-7580
Capitol Federal Hall, room 3166

Academic Areas
Decision Sciences and Supply Chain Management

Biography
Dr. Diana Wu received a Ph.D. in Supply Chain Management and Operations Research from Penn State University in 2006. She is currently an associate professor of Supply Chain/Operations Management. Her research interests are in the areas of supply chain contracts, inventory management, behavioral operations management and experimental economics. Dr. Wu has published articles in top-tiered journals such as Management Science, Production and Operations Management, and Journal of Operations Management. She has taught courses on operations/supply chain management at the undergraduate and graduate levels.