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

• John Anderson, Baird Family Professor of Economics, conducted research into Detroit property taxes that was featured in The Economist called "Detroit wants to be the first big American city to tax land value" as well as quoted in articles about taxing farmland in the Omaha World-Herald and KNEB radio. Read The Economist story, the Omaha World-Herald story and the KNEB Radio story.
• Esma Gel, Cynthia Hardin Milligan Chair of Business and professor of supply chain management and analytics, received the Wolfram Innovator Award, which recognizes eight individuals and teams from across fields, disciplines and the world for their computational excellence in applying Wolfram technologies and computational intelligence in innovative ways. Before she came to Nebraska in 2022, Gel used Mathematica at Arizona State University for a system dynamics model related to the spread of COVID-19. Gel's team helped guide the Arizona Department of Health Services by supplying predicted outcomes to various "what if?" policy questions. The team periodically released accurate projections for cases, hospitalizations and deaths in Arizona for more than 15 months, often being featured in mainstream media outlets. Read more about the award.
• Andre Maciel, co-authored a new study showing that backers of crowdfunding projects participate partly because of a sense of indirect success and the feeling they are contributing to something bigger. The Rural Radio Network ran an Oct. 29 article on the study.
• Jake Messersmith, department chair and associate professor of management, ’01, was named the new chair of the Department of Management. Read the story.
• Daniel Tannenbaum, associate professor of economics, received the award for the best paper published in American Economic Journal (AEJ): Applied Economics over the last three years from the AEJ Board of Editors. Published in 2020 in one of the leading journals across fields in empirical microeconomics, the article "The Evolution of Work in the United States" finds that occupational change in the U.S. in the 20th century has been more substantial than previously thought by building a new dataset and using a new research approach. Read the story.
• Four College of Business undergraduate students were among the Huskers who received stipends for research projects including: Pyper Haarala, senior actuarial science major from Elkhorn, Nebraska, “Gender, Disability and Crime: A Research-Based Fiction Writing Project”; Matthew Gillespie, junior economics major from Omaha, Nebraska, “Cost Curves and Affordable Health Care: An Analysis of Government’s Effect on Baumol’s Cost Disease”; Bethany Barnwell, senior business administration major from Phoenix, “Prediction of ADHD Diagnosis and Concussion History with Brain Scan Data;” and Natasha Maina, junior economics major from Nairobi, Kenya, “The Impact of Economic Recessions on Women’s Participation in STEM and Related Fields: A Longitudinal Analysis.” Read the Nebraska Today story.

Learning + Transformation

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  Janana Khattak, senior political science major and Bureau of Business Research scholar, Ritsa Giannakas, senior economics and political science major, and Canyon Skare, English and psychology major — all from Lincoln, Nebraska — received awards for academic achievements in the Nebraska at Oxford Program. Khattak earned the Dean’s Award for Academic Excellence and a scholarship of $1,000 and Giannakas and Skare earned Dean’s Awards for Academic Achievement and scholarships of $500 each.
• Jason Rogers, senior marketing major from Lincoln, was named a copywriter for the Jacht student-run advertising, media, marketing and public relations agency. Read the Nebraska Today article.
• The Center for Entrepreneurship named 29 faculty and staff as the 2023 class of Entrepreneurship Campus Fellows, who work to connect and create entrepreneurship-related activities across different colleges and areas at the university. Read the story.

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  Fourteen CoB students went on the Minneapolis Career Expedition during fall break, where they visited employers including the Minneapolis Foundation, GMB Capital Partners and Investment Banking, Target, North Rise Partners, CHS Inc. and toured the Mall of America. The students were: Andrew Stubblefield, junior management major from Newbury Park, California; Asif Iqbal, graduate student in economics from Dhaka, Bangladesh; Bruno Salles, junior accounting major from Porto Alegre, Brazil; Casandra Solis, senior management major from Lincoln; Chase Kavanaugh, junior accounting major from Lincoln; Chloe Hoover, junior management-HR major from York, Pennsylvania; Evan Stubblefield, freshman business administration major from Newbury Park, California; Gretchen Holland, sophomore finance and accounting major from Bloomington, Minnesota; Lindsey Coleman, MBA student from Chandler, Arizona; Marcus Anderson, junior finance major from Lincoln; Mariano Azurduy, senior finance and economics major from Santa Cruz, Bolivia; Mia Monroe, freshman business administration major from Elko New Market, Minnesota; Nikolas Mainieri Mancio, business administration and finance major from Porto Alegre, Brazil; and Thiago Ferreira Pereira, senior business administration major from Salvador, Brazil.

Connection + Engagement

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  Carlie Davis, junior management major from Scottsdale, Arizona, was named Student of the Month by the Nebraska Business Student Advisory Board. Read more about her.
• Eleanor Dunning, senior business administration major from Omaha, was named Student of the Month by the Nebraska Business Student Advisory Board. Read more about her.
• Sarah Hindmand, senior actuarial science and finance major from Mount Prospect, Illinois, tutors Lincoln High School students weekly as a math motivator through The Actuarial Foundation to enhance lives through math education and financial literacy. Read the story.
• Alyson Lenz, assistant director of the Strengths Program in the Clifton Strengths Institute, and Edgar Montoya, were selected along with 43 others — including 16 College of Business alumni — for the Nebraska Alumni Association Young Alumni Academy. The academy provides an in-person and online experience dedicated to enhancing the connection and engagement of young alumni with the university. Read the story.
• Amber Messersmith, executive director of Center for Executive and Professional Development and lecturer of management, received the 2023 Leadership Advocate Award from The Arc of Lincoln on October 19 at their Harvest Moon Celebration and Fundraiser to recognize her for her "life-changing leadership" and efforts to grow students' leadership in the Strive to Thrive Lincoln project in her Philanthropy and Leadership (MGNT 411) class each semester. The project, made possible by donations, builds student knowledge, understanding and skills that create change to address community needs through thinking, giving and volunteering to nonprofit organizations in the community of Lincoln and Lancaster County.
• Six business seniors were named University of Nebraska-Lincoln Homecoming Royalty finalists, including: Whitney Schwisow, actuarial science major from Beatrice, Nebraska; Phoenix Sadd, marketing major from Harvard, Nebraska; Ritsa Giannakas, political science and economics major from Lincoln; Dylan Anderson, management major from Omaha; Isha Kishore, finance and Clifton Builders management major from Omaha; and Grant Auman, economics and political science major from Overland Park, Kansas. Read the story about the finalists.
• The Nebraska Council for Economic Education hosted a financial literacy concert in September for Standing Bear High School students in Lincoln featuring the rock band Gooding. Read the Lincoln Public Schools story.
• Nearly 30 College of Business faculty and staff received University of Nebraska–Lincoln Service Awards in October. The university presents a service award to all regular employees who complete intervals of five calendar years of service. College of Business faculty and staff who received awards include:
  • 5 years: Dirk Black, Stuart Dearden, Shivam Gupta, Billy Hansen, Tony Kang, Yingchao Lan, Kasey Linde, Shanna Meyer, Jaylen Peters, Kendra Ritchie, Stephanie Smith, Marissa Starman, Darci Williams and Yunxia (Peter) Zhu
  • 10 years: Nes Vance, Kaitlin Ferris, Amanda Gonzales, Alok Kumar, Melissa Lewis, Jennifer Mostek, Stanislava (Stas) Nikolova, Laura Niles, Kimberly Smith and Kevin Sueper
  • 15 years: Jennifer Davidson
  • 20 years: Amit Saini and Rob Simon
  • 25 years: Rik Barrera, Gwendolyn Combs and Sheila Hayes
  • 30 years: Kathy Farrell
  • 35 years: Kathy Mellick