PhD in Business Administration

Students

Doctoral Candidates

Aihui Ding
Marketing
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Ling Hu
Marketing
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Vita

Ling Hu is a PhD candidate in the School of Marketing and Innovation. Her principal research interests include empirical modeling, service marketing, digital marketing, and measurement development and optimization. She presented her research at various conferences, including the ISMS Marketing Science and AMA conferences. She taught three undergraduate-level courses: Buyer Behavior, Digital Marketing, and Marketing Research. She is also a senior lab coordinator of the Muma CMSI Customer Experience Lab (Tampa). Prior to entering academia, she holds an MBA in Marketing from Boston University and a bachelor's degree in International Trade from Tianjin University of Commerce. She worked as a merchandising manager at Walmart China for over ten years.

Juliana Kralik
Accountancy
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Juliana Kralik is a doctoral candidate in the Lynn Pippenger School of Accountancy. She is interested in researching topics related to the auditing profession using qualitative and experimental methods. Specifically, her research examines the impact of the internal control over financial reporting audit on auditor judgement and decision making along with other challenges in the audit work environment and mechanisms to mitigate the challenges. Kralik also earned her bachelor’s and master’s degree in Accounting from USF. She has taught the Principles of Financial and Managerial Accounting courses as well as Accounting Information Systems. Prior to entering academia, she worked as an external auditor at EY in the Tampa Bay area and maintains an active CPA license.

Jingwen Li
Finance

Mikyoung Lim
Marketing

Mikyoung Lim is a PhD candidate in marketing at the Muma College of Business, University of South Florida. Before transitioning to academia, she accrued experience in the retail industry, specifically in the health and beauty sector, where she served as a manager within a business strategy team for four years. While working in the retail sector, she cultivated a keen interest in optimizing retail environments to enhance the consumer experience. Mikyoung's current research interests lie at the intersection of digital and sensory marketing, with an emphasis on factors that contribute to consumer well-being and happiness. Leveraging her background as a marketing professional, she is keen to work on research that bridges the gap between academic theory and practical business applications.

Richard Mautz
Accounting
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Rich Mautz is a doctoral candidate in the Lynn Pippenger School of Accountancy. He primarily uses experimental research methods to study how management control systems and technology affect the way that people and organizations work. He has presented his research at several American Accounting Association (AAA) and academic conferences. Rich has a co-authored publication in the Journal of Emerging Technologies in Accounting (2022) on teaching blockchain in accounting. He also has a co-authored publication in Internal Auditor (2018) that won a John B. Thurston – Outstanding Contributor award from the Institute of Internal Auditors. Rich serves as an ad-hoc reviewer for the Journal of Emerging Technologies in Accounting and has served as a reviewer, moderator, and discussant for more than seven AAA conferences. In 2020, he received an Outstanding Reviewer award for his contribution to the AAA Management Accounting Section midyear conference. In the classroom, Rich has taught undergraduate courses in financial and managerial accounting, accounting information systems and data analytics, and management information systems. Prior to entering academia, Rich worked for seven years as an auditor, financial analyst, and software developer in the public accounting and banking industries. He holds a Master’s degree in computer science and information systems from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, as well as Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in accounting from the University of Tennessee and Appalachian State University, respectively.

Chandler Miller
Accounting
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Veronika Ponomarenko
Marketing
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Arindam Ray
Information Systems
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Ahmed Shuaib
Accounting

Roohid Ahmed Syed
Information Systems
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David Watson
Accounting
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Dave Watson is a PhD candidate from the Lynn Pippenger School of Accountancy. His research focuses on the intersection of information systems, accounting, and psychology, particularly investigating algorithm bias, artificial intelligence, decision support systems, and design frameworks. He co-authored a paper regarding ChatGPT and accounting curriculum (Wood et al. 2023) in Issues in Accounting Education. His professional experience includes working with a small CPA firm that specialized in the entertainment industry and as an accounting implementation consultant in the technology industry. His academic background includes a bachelor's degree from Brigham Young University (2015) and a Master of Science in Accountancy from Michigan State University (2020). Dave has presented his work at numerous conferences, including the AAA AIS Section Midyear (2022), AAA Annual Conference (2023), Brigham Young University's Accounting Research Symposium (2022), Florida Behavioral Accounting Research Symposium (2022), and the Graduate Research in Accounting Conference at Emory (2023). He has taught Accounting Information Systems and Principles of Managerial Accounting courses at USF. He has a particular interest in teaching AIS and Data Analytics at both the undergraduate and the graduate levels. Dave currently serves as the Chair of the Junior Accounting Scholars Organization, which was created in 2021 to facilitate opportunities for PhD and junior accounting faculty to network and present their early-stage research.

Zicheng Xiao
Finance
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Zicheng Xiao’s primary research interests lie at the intersection of FinTech, behavioral finance, investments, and capital markets. Specifically, Xiao is particularly captivated by the transformative impact of technological advancements in finance and is currently focusing on how fintech is revolutionizing traditional financial ecosystems. In line with this focus, his current research agenda includes several key areas: (1) investigating the role of artificial intelligence in enhancing market efficiency, (2) analyzing the market consequences of using generative AI for topic classification to quantify attention divergence, and (3) exploring the influence of social media on financial markets.

Gleb Zavadskiy
Information Systems
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Doctoral Students