New Faculty Join Georgetown McDonough

This fall, seven new tenure-track and visiting faculty members and professors of the practice joined Georgetown University’s McDonough’s School of Business.

Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty

Sean Blair, assistant professor of marketing, researches control, identity, inferential reasoning, and compensatory consumption. Blair received a Ph.D. and M.S. in marketing from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, as well as an MBA from Emory University’s Goizueta Business School and a B.S. in nuclear engineering from the University of Florida. Blair also provides Georgetown with industry experience from LogistiCare and Navigant Consulting.

Ferdinando Monte, assistant professor of economics, previously worked as an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University’s Carey Business School and as visiting professor at Princeton University. His research focuses primarily on economic geography, international economics, and the organization of the firm. Monte has consulted for companies in Italy and Switzerland. He holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in economics from the University of Chicago, an M.Sc. in economics from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Spain, and a B.A. in economics from Universita Bocconi in Italy.

Jonathan R. Stroud, associate professor of operations and information management, researches Bayesian modeling, Monte Carlo methods, statistical computing, time series, state space models, finance, stochastic volatility, option pricing, spatial statistics, and environmental statistics. Stroud joins McDonough from George Washington University, where he was an associate professor in the department of statistics. He previously was an assistant professor of statistics at the Wharton School of business. Stroud holds a Ph.D. and an M.S. in statistics from Duke University, as well as a B.A. in mathematics from Boston University.

Non-Tenure Line Faculty

Lihong Liang, visiting associate professor in accounting, comes to Georgetown from Syracuse University. Liang’s research includes financial empirical research, market anomalies, analyst forecasts, and corporate governance. Earning a B.A. in management engineering from Beijing Polytechnic University, in addition to an M.S. and Ph.D. in accounting from The Pennsylvania State University, Liang has received several awards for her research and teaching.

Michael McDermott, professor of the practice in management, comes to Georgetown from George Washington University where he taught human development at the graduate level. With professional experience in several corporate, human resources departments, McDermott focuses on developing and implementing successful management performances and strategies. He holds a B.A. in sociology from St. Anselm College in Massachusetts, as well as an M.A. and a Ph.D. in psychology from Notre Dame.

James P. Sinclair, visiting assistant professor in accounting, comes to Georgetown from his role as an assistant professor of accounting at University of Connecticut. Sinclair was awarded Best Paper from the Portuguese Finance Network Conference in 2014, as well as top honors in accounting through the 40 Under Forty Recognition program. Sinclair’s research focuses primarily on informational economics, behavioral finance, and business valuation. He received a Ph.D. in business administration with a concentration in accounting and a B.S. in accounting from Pennsylvania State University.

Mariano Tappata, visiting assistant professor in strategy and business economics, served as a researcher, professor, lecturer, advisor, and seminar coordinator before coming to Georgetown. Tappata’s research fields include industrial organization, applied microeconomics, and marketing. He holds a B.A. in economics from Universidad Nacional de La Plata, an M.A. in finance from Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, and an M.A. and a Ph.D. in economics from UCLA.

Additionally, Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business has added three lecturers to its faculty this fall.

David Faraci, graduate lecturer for the Georgetown Institute Study of Markets and Ethics, specializes in ethics and experimental philosophy, with additional experience in epistemology, logic, metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of technology, and social and political philosophy. Earning a B.A. in philosophy from Rutgers University and an M.A. and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Bowling Green State University, Faraci has numerous publications, journals and awards, including several graduate and doctorate fellowships.

Govind Persad, graduate lecturer for the Georgetown Institute Study of Markets and Ethics, comes to Georgetown from the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy where he was an instructor for the department’s Bioethics Boot Camp. Persad’s research includes examining the intersection of law, morality and markets, and his findings have been published in multiple academic journals. Persad holds a Ph.D. in philosophy and a J.D. from Stanford Law School through the university’s joint J.D./Ph.D. program.

Abraham A. Singer, strategy lecturer, specializes in political philosophy, business ethics, philosophy and economics, history of political thought, democratic theory, and philosophy of law. In addition to numerous publications and awards, including the 2014 Society for Business Ethics Founders Award, Singer has film and documentary experience. Singer holds both a B.A. in political science and English and a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto, as well as an M.A. in political science from the University of Illinois.