Management Faculty Spotlight

I was a study abroad advisor at Texas A&M when I started my career. After I earned my graduate degree in survey research, I worked at the University of Wisconsin in K-12 research, managing multimillion-dollar federal grant projects, developing surveys and observation protocols for evaluations of new educational programs, and providing professional development to teachers, principals, and district leaders around statistical models using test data.

My research focuses on inequities in the workplace. I study women in leadership; discrimination and bias at work, particularly in terms of promotion and development; gender diversity among top leadership in organizations; and teaching equity in the business classroom.

My most recent publication was about how women use women’s professional groups to gain professional development and leadership experiences outside of their workplaces. I enjoyed this study because I was able to interview many women about their experiences and discover how they worked around the limitations of their workplaces (for example, working in small organizations or organizations that did not have many resources for professional development) to build their skill set and meet their professional goals such as earning a promotion to leadership in their workplace.

One of my most exciting projects right now is looking at bias against military spouses. Kansas State is near Ft. Riley, so we have many students in our university and many military members and their families in our community. Unfortunately, for many of these families, because they move quite often in the military, their partners often have a hard time finding and keeping a job because employers are hesitant to hire workers who may move soon after starting. My colleagues and I are interested in their experiences and helping the State of Kansas, among other government and military entities, to develop legislation and guidelines to help military spouses find meaningful work in their chosen fields.

Organizational Behavior, Human Resource Management, and Compensation.

I don’t have a favorite class to teach since I am always trying to improve my classes with new hands-on activities and more in-depth discussions that are relevant to students. I have some favorite activities such as in-class discussions about unpaid internships, our stereotypes around social class, and the history of employment discrimination in the U.S. that are particularly interesting to me, and I hope to my students as well.

I was a study abroad advisor early in my career, so I always advocate for students to have international experiences whenever they can. I also believe in work-life balance and spend a lot of my free time playing tennis, watching movies, and traveling, when I can.