Learn more about recent honors, appointments and publications at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln College of Business in this month's achievements column. The achievements of faculty, staff and students are grouped within the college’s three mission-focused goals of research + discovery, learning + transformation and connection + engagement.

Research + Discovery

• Andrew Hanna, assistant professor of management and Seacrest Teaching Fellow, spoke on the Grow Lincoln radio show July 27 about how he uses artificial intelligence to improve students' problem-solving experience in his classroom. Listen to the podcast.
• Wesley Boyce, assistant professor of practice in supply chain management and analytics and program director of master of science in supply chain management, contributed expert advice to a USA Today article that reviewed the best long-distance moving companies and provided cost insights. Read the article.
• Tom Kubick, Delmar A. Lienemann Sr. Presidential Chair and professor of accountancy, and his co-authors researched how locked-in CEO equity affects debt contracts. They found higher CEO tax burdens can lead to increased loan spreads and changes in loan terms. The study was published in the Review of Accounting Studies in July. Read the research.
• Fred Luthans, George Holmes Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Management, was ranked 14th in the United States and 27th in the world by Research.com, an academic platform for researchers, in their 2024 list of Ranking of Best Scientists in the Field of Business and Management. He also received their Business and Management Leader Award for 2024. On Google Scholar, Luthans’ research has been cited 159,299 times.

Learning + Transformation

• The Princeton Review ranked the MBA@Nebraska program No. 7 in the nation. The Top 50 Online MBA Programs for 2024 were selected based on data from surveys completed by administrators at over 400 business schools offering online MBAs and more than 32,000 students enrolled in online MBA programs across the nation. Read the story.
• The College of Business launches a new business analytics major this fall to meet growing employer demand across every industry for this valuable skillset. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts up to 20% growth in business analytics jobs across the nation between 2021 and 2031, with similar job growth forecasted in Nebraska by the Nebraska Department of Labor. Read the story.
• Amit Saini, department chair and W. W. Marshall College Professor and professor of marketing, was promoted to chair of the Department of Marketing this fall. Read the story.
• Eight business faculty received promotions, including:
  • Promoted to associate professor and granted tenure: Amy Bartels, management; Shivam Gupta, supply chain management and analytics; Yingchao Lan, supply chain management and analytics; Samuel Melessa, accountancy; and Daniel Tannenbaum, economics.
  • Robert Mackalski was promoted to associate professor of practice in marketing.
  • Kathryn Maresh was promoted to associate professor of practice in accountancy.
  • Sue Vagts was promoted to professor of practice in actuarial science. Read the story.
• Poets&Quants' recently released the seventh annual Best and Brightest Online MBAs and included two Huskers, Scott Holweger, '97 and '24, of Spring Hill, Kansas, and Megan O'Brien, '24, of Charlotte, North Carolina. Selected for their "strong academic performance, critical and consistent contributions, striking personal narratives and innate potential," the students joined others in the list of the world's top-ranked online MBA programs. Read the article.

Connection + Engagement

• The College of Business Career Center celebrated outstanding collaborators in student career development at the annual Employer Partners Day on July 29. Emily Krupicka was named its first Intern of the Year, Rob Simon, associate professor of practice in marketing, received the Sue Vagts Faculty/Staff Partner of the Year, and Lutz received Employer of the Year honors. Read the story.
• Laurie Miller, associate dean of undergraduate programs and curriculum and associate professor of practice in economics, was named to the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) Associate Deans in Affinity Group Steering Committee.
• Business students in Nebraska's chapter of the international Beta Alpha Psi student organization attended its annual meeting in Orlando, Florida, this summer. Three CoB students competed and won first place in the Best Practices-Empowering Community Service competition: Morgan Wallinger, accounting and agribusiness graduate student from Stuart, Nebraska; Trinity Hansen, senior accounting major from Stapleton, Nebraska; and Ben Fiala, senior accounting major from Omaha, Nebraska. The trio presented on Nebraska's new "BAP on Tour" project in which they spoke to six rural Nebraska high schools, many without designated business teachers, to educate teens about opportunities in accounting and finance.
• Bruno Salles, senior accounting and finance major from Porto Alegre, Brazil, also participated in "Project Run With It" at the annual meeting with a randomly-assigned team that included three other students from different schools. The teams worked with an Orlando-based nonprofit to help the organization with a project it chose. Salles' team, assigned to Quest, an organization that helps people with developmental disabilities, won first place among the six teams working with the nonprofit.
• Four Beta Alpha Psi students from the Nebraska chapter also had four students present on member recruitment and retention at the annual meeting. They were Derek Huss, senior accounting major from Spencer, Iowa; Courtney Cummings, junior accounting major from Kansas City, Missouri; Andrew Bell, senior accounting major from Aurora, Nebraska; and Zoey Aldridge, senior accounting and management major from Cairo, Nebraska.
• Emily Krupicka, junior management (human resources) major from Grand Island, Nebraska, and her team placed first in the divisional and company-wide competitions of the 2024 Charles Schwab Business Challenge Summit. There were over 50 teams of about 400 interns from across the United States. Earning a perfect score, Krupicka's grand champion interdisciplinary team was asked to identify how Schwab could use generative AI to provide exceptional client services. They proposed the integration of generative AI to create synthetic datasets that improve fraud detection models.
• Bergen Reilly, business and law major from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and Husker beach volleyball player was named a Big Ten Distinguished Scholar for 2023-24, earning a minimum GPA of 3.70. Read the article.
• Reed Malleck, ’24 finance graduate from York, Nebraska, and Quinn Yost, junior business administration major from Farmington, New Mexico, both Nebraska men’s golfers, received GCAA Scholastic All-America honors and Academic All-Big Ten selections for 2023-24. Read the story.