UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – The Penn State Smeal College of Business welcomes 13 new faculty members for the 2024-25 academic year.
Kathy Baughman and Anik Choudhury have joined the Department of Accounting.
Baughman comes to Smeal from Juniata College, where she was the division head of accounting, business and economics. She is a certified public accountant in Pennsylvania and a certified fraud examiner. Baughman also has been a part-time lecturer in accounting at Penn State since 2016. She earned her MBA from Saint Francis University and holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Penn State. Her research interests focus on student engagement and innovative teaching methods in accounting education.
Choudhury has been a guest lecturer at Drexel University and Penn State. He recently completed his doctorate in business administration with a concentration in accounting from Drexel University. He also holds an MBA with a concentration in finance from Penn State and a bachelor’s in accountancy from Villanova University. Choudhury’s research interests focus on archival audit research, the economic impact of accounting policy, and the factors that influence the demand and supply of financial statement assurance. He taught multiple courses as lead instructor at Drexel University and has been a guest lecturer at Penn State.
The Department of Finance welcomes three new members: Thomas Geelen, Fred Hood and Young Soo Jang.
Geelen comes to Smeal from the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark, where he was an assistant professor of finance. He earned his doctorate in finance from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in 2018, and he is a member of the Finance Theory Group. His research focuses on corporate finance and has been published in the Journal of Financial Economics and the Review of Financial Studies.
Hood previously served as a visiting assistant professor of finance at Virginia Tech's Pamplin College of Business. He earned his doctorate in finance and a master’s in applied economics from the University of Rochester and holds a bachelor’s in economics from Michigan State University. His research interests focus on corporate credit and default risk. Hood’s professional experience includes his time as an assistant professor of finance at Iowa State University and a director of a research group at Moody's Analytics.
Jang earned his doctorate in finance from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and a bachelor’s degree in economics and mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has worked as a research assistant at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and focuses his research on empirical corporate finance, with particular interests in corporate debt and entrepreneurial finance. He has studied various parts of the private capital markets: private credit, private equity, and venture capital.
The Department of Management and Organization welcomes three new members: Semin Park, Federica Pinelli and Yidan (Dani) Yin.
Park comes to Smeal from the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business, where she was an assistant professor of management and entrepreneurship. She earned her doctorate in management from the University of Connecticut, as well as a master’s and a bachelor’s from Seoul National University. Her research focuses on relational dynamics within and between teams, utilizing a social network perspective to examine how work collectives evolve over time across different contexts.
Pinelli joins Smeal from Columbia Business School, where she was a post-doctoral scholar. She holds a doctorate in psychology from Columbia University with a focus on social and organizational psychology. She also earned an MBA from Columbia Business School and a master’s in economics from Birkbeck College in London. Her research focuses on agreement co-creation, socialization in higher education, shared realities, and their impact on stress and decision-making.
Yin comes to Smeal from the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business, where she designed and taught courses on business and economic inequality. She holds a doctorate in management from the University of California, San Diego, and a bachelor’s in psychology from Zhejiang University in China. Her research explores how individuals navigate novelty and change in organizations, as well as the roles of abstract and concrete thinking in managerial cognition.
Evan Smith is transitioning to an instructor in the Department of Marketing. He has been an assistant director of marketing and communications at Smeal’s Office of Undergraduate Education and an adviser since 2016. Smith holds a master’s degree in educational leadership and business administration from Lehigh University and a bachelor’s in marketing and economics from Penn State. He brings extensive experience in academic advising and curriculum development to his new role as an instructor.
The Department of Risk Management welcomes Menglong Guan and Santoshi Rimal.
Guan earned his doctorate in economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he also obtained his master’s degree in economics. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Xiamen University. Guan’s research focuses on experimental economics, behavioral economics and microeconomic theory. He has extensive teaching experience, having taught courses in statistics and intermediate microeconomic theory at UC Santa Barbara.
Rimal earned her doctorate in business administration with a focus on finance from Louisiana State University in May 2024. She holds a master’s in finance from the University of North Texas and both a master’s and bachelor’s degree in business studies with a focus on finance from Tribhuvan University in Nepal. Her research interests include household finance, real estate, fintech and corporate finance. She taught various finance courses at LSU.
Zhenzhen Yan and Yuting Yuan have joined the Department of Supply Chain and Information Systems.
Yan earned her doctorate in operations and sourcing management from Michigan State University’s Broad College of Business. She also holds a master’s in supply chain and operations management from SUNY at Buffalo. Before her academic journey, she worked as procurement specialist in diverse contexts including Anchorage, Alaska, China, Ecuador and Columbia. Her research focuses on strategic procurement, supply chain networks, sustainable supply chain management and the supply chain-public policy interface. She has previously taught at Wayne State University and Idaho State University.
Yuan comes to Smeal from the College of William & Mary, where she was a visiting assistant professor of mathematics and data science. She holds a doctorate in operations management from the University of Rochester, a master’s in financial statistics from Rutgers University and a bachelor’s in mathematics from Nanjing University in China. Her research interests include data analytics in operations management, queueing theory, and interpretable decision-making.