Speakers

Jean Bartunek is the Robert A. & Evelyn J. Ferris Chair and Professor of Management & Organization at Boston College. Dr. Jean Bartunek's primary interests center around academic-practicioner relationships and organizational change. She is interested in multiple dimensions of links between theory, research, and practice, including collaborative research, how knowledge is shared across boundaries, and relationships that transcend research. In addition, she studies multiple dimensions of the processes of organizational change, especially relationships between change agents and recipients, and interactions within and across these groups. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Chicago. 

Kevin Rockmann is a Professor of Management at George Mason University's Costello College of Business. He is the OB Coordinator for the Ph.D. in Business program, the past Director of the Ph.D. in Business program, and the past Director of the MBA program. He also served as Associate Dean overseeing both graduate and undergraduate research. His research and teaching focuses on how managers and organizations facilitate not only the management of individuals but the management of the connections between individuals. His research has been featured in many popular media outlets and recognized with scholarly awards from a variety of national and international organizations. He is also the lead author on the textbook Negotiation: Moving from Conflict to Agreement, published by Sage in 2021. He also speaks and consults regularly for organizations on topics regarding leadership, negotiation, relationship management, and management teaching pedagogy. 

Srilata (Sri) Zaheer became the 12th Dean of the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota on March 8, 2012. She served in this role until July 2, 2023. Sri holds the Elmer L. Andersen Chair in Global Corporate Social Responsibility and her research focus is on international business; a topic on which she has published extensively. She is a Fellow of the Academy of International Business, and a former Consulting Editor of the Journal of International Business Studies. Sri serves on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, where she is currently serving as Chair. In 2021, the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal honored Sri's professional achievements, leadership qualities, and contributions to the broader Twin Cities community with its Women in Business Career Achievement Award. In 2020, for her service on the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Sri was inducted into the Junior Achievement of the Upper Midwest Business Hall of Fame and honored as a Woman of Distinction by the Girl Scouts of Minnesota and Wisconsin River Valleys. 

Theresa M. Glomb is the Toro Company-David M. Lilly Chair in the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. Professor Glomb has conducted research and published in the areas of emotions and mood in organizations, job attitudes and behaviors, emotional labor, and workplace victimization including incivility, aggression and sexual harassment. She has published in outlets such as the Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Academy of Management Journal and the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. She has served on the editorial boards of the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and the Journal of Management. Professor Glomb teaches in the masters, doctoral, and executive programs at the University of Minnesota in the areas of organizational behavior and human resources. In 2003 Professor Glomb received the Carlson School of Management Award for Excellence in Teaching, in 2006 she received the Carlson School of Management Award for Excellence in Service and in 2013 she received the Carlson School of Management Award for Research. 

Joseph P. Redden is a Professor of Marketing at the Carlson School of Management. He is currently focused on how to help consumers extract more enjoyment without changing the product, how to reduce consumer boredom, and how to encourage (and enjoy) healthier eating. His original work in this area, "Reducing Satiation: The Role of Categorization Level," won the American Marketing Association's 2007 John A. Howard Doctoral Dissertation Award and the 2008 Robert Ferber Award based on a publication in the Journal of Consumer Research. He was also chosen as a Young Scholar and Marketing Scholar for 2013 and 2020 respectively by the Marketing Science Institute, and was named to the Poets & Quants list of the Top 40 Undergraduate Professors in 2017. Prior to academia, he was a senior management consultant, the Director of Product Management at leading digital agency Avenue A, and was a founding member of aQuantive's Atlas division. 

Yuqin Ren is an Associate Professor and the Mary and Jim Lawrence Fellow at the Carlson School of Management. Her research focuses on human machine relationship, human robot collaboration, social media, smartphone use, and computational modeling of social and organizational systems. Dr. Ren's research on online community design and Wikipedia collaboration has been funded by the National Science Foundation. Dr. Ren won the Carlson School of Management Faculty teaching award in 2017 and 2022 and has been nominated by students as the Faculty of the Year multiple times. She served as a Senior Editor (and Diffusion Editor) at Organization Science from 2016 to 2022, Associate Editor for MIS Quarterly in 2022, Associate Editor for Management Science (Information Systems Department) from 2015 to 2017 and on the editorial board of Organization Science from 2008 to 2016. Dr. Ren currently serves on the editorial board of Journal of MIS. 

Ibanga Umanah is the CEO and Head of Strategy of Brave, a simulator and calculator for any workforce question. He's an organizational psychologist, product designer, and innovation strategist who has conceived and built over 20 new ventures for Fortune 500 corporations including GE, FedEx, Samsung, Lowe's, and Aetna. He also helped build an executive training school for a large BPO in India and helped write the school's foundational book, Leadership without Borders. He has degrees in Organizational and Social Psychology from the LSE as well as Finance and Political Science from the U of M. 

Avner Ben-Ner studies how organizations are designed and how they perform in relationship to ownership type, workforce composition, technology and other variables. He also investigates individual and group behavior relative to social preferences and cognition. His work spans theory and empirics, using a variety of methods and data sources. Avner is a Professor in the Center for Human Resources and Labor Studies (formerly the Industrial Relations Center) in the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. He has served as Director of the Center, Ph.D. coordinator and academic director of the MA program. He is also affiliated with the Law School, the Center for the Study of Political Psychology and the Graduate Faculty in Applied Economics, at the University of Minnesota. He has served on the University of Minnesota Faculty Consultative Committee (2011-14) and the Carlson School of Management Faculty Consultative Committee Chair (2017-18). He was President of the Association for Comparative Economic Studies (2006-7) and Program Chair and Chair of the Public and Nonprofit Division of the Academy of Management (2010-13), and is co-editor of Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics (2016-). 

Stephan Dilchert is an Associate Professor of Management at the Zicklin School of Business in Baruch College (CUNY). He teaches management and HR courses in the school's undergraduate, doctoral, executive, and international programs. He is also the Academic Director of the SHRM-aligned Executive Master's Program in Human Resource Management. His research focuses on how personality, intelligence, and other human capital variables relate to employee performance and counterproductive work behaviors. He spent his formative years in Germany, England, and France before going on to study psychology at the Freie Universität Berlin. He discovered his passion for human capital research (and its real-world applications) at the University of Minnesota, where he completed his Ph.D. in industrial-organizational psychology. He frequently consults with large multinationals, government agencies, and NGOs to help them design and implement fair and valid hiring systems. 

Richard N. Landers, Ph.D., is the John P. Campbell Distinguished Professor of Industrial-Organizational Psychology at the University of Minnesota. He is Principal Investigator for TNTLAB (Testing New Technologies in Learning, Assessment and Behavior), where his research concerns the use of innovative technologies like games, gamification, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality, to improve psychometric assessment, employee selection, adult learning, and research methods. He is a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, American Psychological Association, and Association for Psychological Science. He currently serves as associate editor for the International Journal of Selection and Assessment, consulting editor for the Journal of Applied Psychology, and on the editorial board of Journal of Business and Psychology and Personnel Assessment and Decisions. He is author of a statistics textbook and has developed two edited scholarly volumes: Social Media in Employee Selection and the Cambridge Handbook of Technology and Employee Behavior. 

Sima Sajjadiani is an assistant professor in the OBHR Division at University of British Columbia's Sauder School of Business. She received her Ph.D. in organizational behavior & human resources management from the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management. Her research is at the intersection of strategic HR and people analytics, aimed at optimizing HR processes and understanding employment experiences. 

John Kammeyer-Mueller is the Curtis L. Carlson Professor of Industrial Relations at the University of Minnesota. His research examines how workers adjust to new jobs, human resources practices, the relationship between individual differences and career development, and how attitudes and emotions shape behavior in organizations. In recent years he has published over 50 peer reviewed articles and book chapters, which have appeared in publications such as the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, and Journal of Management, among others. He served as an associate editor for Personnel Psychology and was chair of the Research Methods Division for the Academy of Management. He's taught courses related to organizational behavior and human resources in our specialized masters, MBA, and doctoral programs. Besides his academic work, he has provided human resources consulting with several organizations, including the Minneapolis Public Schools, Minnesota Department of Economic Security, Florida Nurses Association, University of Minnesota, Allegiance Healthcare, 3M, Merck, American Express, Cargill, and General Mills.  

Katherine W. Arendt, M.D., is an obstetric anesthesiologist whose research focuses on anesthesia for women with high-risk pregnancies. Focus areas: Obstetric anesthesia for women with cardiovascular disease and maternal anesthesia for fetal surgery. Maternal mortality in the U.S. is increasing, and cardiovascular disease is now the leading cause of maternal death. Dr. Arendt's research aims to identify the optimal obstetric anesthetic care for patients with high-risk congenital or acquired heart disease. 

Steve Cramer retired at the end of 2023 as the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Minneapolis Downtown Council & Downtown Improvement District. In prior years he was a Minneapolis City Council member from 1984 to 1993. Steve also worked for the nonprofit organization Project for Pride in Living from 1994 through 1999, serving as the Director of Housing and Development, Chief Operating Officer and finally President and Executive Director. He then served as Director of the Minneapolis Community Development Agency (known today as CPED) from 1999 to February 2022 and as Director of the Hennepin County Department of Housing, Community Works & Transit from February 2002 to August 2003. Steve served on numerous community boards over the years, including most recently the Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce, Meet Minneapolis, Catholic Charities, YouthLink as Board Chair, Green Minneapolis and the Minneapolis Club. He Co-Chaired Mayor Frey's Vibrant Downtown Storefronts Workgroup and served on the Heading Home Hennepin Executive Committee addressing homelessness in the community. 

Betsy Vohs founded the architecture and design firm Studio BV in 2015 to dedicate her ideas and energy to clients who want transformational design solutions. Accolades include being one of Twin Cities Business's Top 100 People (2021) and a top Woman in Architecture (2021). Studio BV's work was awarded VMSD's Retail Renovation of the Year 2023 and has been featured in numerous publications, including Interior Design Magazine's Best of Year 3 times. Vohs started Design Forward, which is the pro-bono division of Studio BV dedicated to doing design work for mission-driven organizations. To date, Design Forward has helped over 50 organizations. Studio BV is the first architecture and design firm to receive the Twin Cities Business Community Impact Award (2023). Vohs has a Master of Architecture from the U of M and a B.S. in Design from Arizona State University. She is currently Treasurer of the UMAA Board of Directors. 

Priti Pradhan Shah is an Associate Professor in the Department of Work and Organizations at the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota. Her primary research areas are Social Networks, Teams and Decision-Making, Her research is published in Organization Science, Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes among others. Her areas of teaching expertise include Negotiations, Organizational Behavior, Teams and Social Networks. In addition to the Carlson School, she has taught at MIT and Yale. She also held a Visiting Scientist position at the Mayo Clinic during her sabbatical. Professor Shah has undergraduate degrees in Psychology and Biology from the University of Rochester. She holds a Masters and PhD in Organizational Behavior from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. 

Susan Brower is the Minnesota State Demographer and directs the MN State Demographic Center. Susan became the State Demographer in February 2012. In that capacity, she travels the state talking with Minnesotans about the new social and economic realities that are brought about by recent demographic shifts. Susan's work applies an understanding of demographic trends to changes in a range of areas including the state's economy and workforce, education, health, immigration and rural population changes. Susan joined the State Demographic Center after working as a researcher on the Minnesota Compass project at Wilder Research in St. Paul. Prior to that, she worked at the Opulation Studies Center at the University of Michigan. Susan earned her Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Michigan, specializing in demography and family sociology. She also holds a master's degree in public policy from Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. 

William P. Jones is Professor of History at the University of Minnesota. A scholar of race and class in the 20th century United States, he is author of two award-winning books: The Tribe of Black Ulysses: African American Lumber Workers in the Jim Crow South and The March on Washington: Jobs, Freedom, and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights. Jones has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, and The Nation, been interviewed on PBS News Hour, NPR's The Takeaway, and Democracy Now, and is currently writing a book titled Essential Workers: Public Service and the Dignity of Labor. 

Deniz Ones is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Minnesota, where she holds multiple distinguished professorships. She is globally recognized for her extensive research on individual differences in employee selection. Focusing on the assessment of individual differences in the context of employee selection. Focusing on the assessment of individual differences in the context of employee staffing and talent management, her work includes the measurement of personality, integrity, and cognitive ability. She aims to predict work behaviors and outcomes, with a particular interest in counterproductive work behaviors. Her significant contributions to Industrial and Organizational Psychology have earned her recognition as one of the field's most influential scholars. With hundreds of articles and book chapters to her credit, she has been cited tens of thousands of times in scientific literature, placing her in the top 1% of management and business citations worldwide. She has received numerous awards acknowledging the excellence and importance of her scientific contributions. A fellow of three divisions of the American Psychology Association; Personality & Social Psychology, Industrial-Organizational Psychology, and Quantitative and Qualitative Methods. She also holds an Honorary Doctorate from Leuphana University Luneburg, Germany, for her exceptional scientific contributions. 

John W. Budd is a Professor of Work and Organizations in the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management, where he  holds the Industrial Relations Land Grant Chair. Professor Budd is the author of Employment with a Human Face: Balancing Efficiency, Equity, and Voice (Cornell University Press), Labor Relations: Striking a Balance (McGraw-Hill), Invisible Hands, Invisible Objectives: Bringing Workplace Law and Public Policy into Focus (with Stephen Befort, Stanford University Press), The Thought of Work (Cornell University Press), and numerous journal articles. Professor Budd is a recipient of the Richard A. Lester Prize for the Outstanding Book in Labor Economics and Industrial Relations, the Melvin Lurie Labor-Management Cooperation Prize, and the James G. Scoville Best International / Comparative Industrial Relations Paper Award. Budd is a Labor and Employment Relations Association (LERA) Fellow, and will be President of LERA in 2025-26. In 2023 Professor Budd served on the [Minnesota] Governor's Committee on the Compensation, Wellbeing, and Fair Treatment of Transportation Network Company Drivers. Within the University of Minnesota, he has been Chair of the Department of Work and Organizations, Director of the Center for Human Resources and Labor Studies, Director of Graduate Studies for the University of Minnesota's graduate programs in Human Resources and Industrial Relations, and a key developer of the undergraduate course "Race, Power, and Justice in Business."