Faculty Directory

Learn from faculty who bridge theory and practice

At UC Davis, you learn from world-class scholars and industry leaders who bring global perspectives and real-world insights into every class. They create a collaborative, high-impact learning environment that combines academic rigor with professional relevance.

Our faculty are more than instructors. They are mentors who know your name, challenge your thinking and support your success. With a low student-to-faculty ratio, you'll build strong, personal connections that continue long after graduation.

Trained at top institutions including Stanford, MIT, Wharton, Carnegie Mellon, Harvard, Chicago Booth, Cornell and Northwestern, our faculty combine academic expertise with real business experience. Many consult with Fortune 500 firms, lead influential research and advise on public policy.

You’ll engage with complex business problems through case studies, simulations, guest lectures and team projects. This immersive approach turns big ideas into practical tools you can use throughout your career.

10:1

student: faculty ratio

ACCESSIBLE

40%

female faculty

DIVERSE

Top 15%

globally for research impact

HIGH QUALITY

(QS, 2025)

Glossary
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Grace Mubako

Grace Mubako

Visiting Professor

Ph.D., Business Administration - Accounting, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, 2012

Research Expertise
Audit judgment, Internal audit

Grace Mubako has 15 years of teaching experience in the area of accounting and auditing. Her research focuses on audit judgment and decision making, professional skepticism, as well as internal auditing and corporate governance issues. She also volunteers in several roles with the Institute of internal auditors where she advocates for internal audit awareness and education among students.

Headshot of Ashwin Aravindakshan

Ashwin Aravindakshan Nair

Associate Professor

Associate Professor Ashwin Aravindakshan’s research interests center on learning how brands can better allocate their advertising resources (e.g., budgets, creatives, etc.) across different regions and/or multiple media over time. In addition to studying such dynamic advertising models, his research also investigates the dynamics of customer behavior and loyalty to help managers devise better communication and targeting policies in order to optimize their marketing mix at the individual level.

(530) 752-5767

540 Alumni Lane 3312 Gallagher Hall Davis, CA 95616

Jim Olson

Jim Olson

Lecturer, Robert A. Fox Executive in Residence, 2013

Jim Olson founded the WestShore Management Group in April of 2007, continuing a distinguished career after leading several high technology businesses for two Fortune companies and serving for nine years as CEO of SkyStream Networks, the top rated IPTV video head-end provider worldwide. WestShore Management Group provides Interim CEO, corporate consulting, and executive development services for both public, and private, venture-financed companies.

Mike Palazzolo

Mike Palazzolo

Associate Professor of Marketing

Ph.D., University of Michigan

Research Expertise
Choice, causal inference, retail, nutrition

Mike Palazzolo's research lies at the intersection of marketing and policy. Recently he has been focused on consumer nutrition, in an effort to learn how marketers can encourage healthier food selection. 

Palazzolo teaches courses on causal inference and marketing analytics for the GSM's MBA programs.

540 Alumni Lane 3308 Gallagher Hall Davis, CA 95616

Jason Perez

Jason Perez

Visiting Faculty

J.D., UC Davis
Master of Business Administration (MBA), UC Davis

Jason Perez began his career in the United States Navy as a military police officer. He served approximately one and a half years in Bahrain and two years in New Jersey leading teams of police officers responding to emergency 911 calls. Perez was also given the opportunity to attend military detainee operations school, where upon completion, he worked for approximately one and a half years at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba as a prison guard.

Portrait of Kay Peters

Kay Peters

Visiting Professor

Ph.D., Christian-Albrechts-University, Kiel, Germany

Courses Taught 
New Product Development (Startups), Digital Marketing, International Marketing

Kay Peters is the SVI-endowed Chair of Dialog Marketing and Professor of Marketing at Hamburg University, Germany. He holds a visiting position at the University of California Davis since 2010.

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Gary Pieroni

Visiting Professor

Master of Business Administration (MBA), John F. Kennedy, 1993,
Bachelor of Science (B.S.), Accounting, California State University, 1980

Gary Pieroni has more than 14 years corporate financial reporting in a Fortune-50 company. He assisted in the standard setting process as an Academic Fellow at the International Accounting Standards Board in London from 2015-2017. Pieroni has more than 33 years teaching students at all stages in life at the UC, State University, and Community.

Headshot of Elizabeth Pontikes

Elizabeth Pontikes

Professor

Ph.D., Stanford Graduate School of Business

Research Expertise
Category strategy, market evolution, stigma in markets

Elizabeth Pontikes is a professor of management at the University of California, Davis, which she joined in 2019. She was formerly on the faculty of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business as an associate professor and was a visiting associate professor at the Kellogg School of Management. She is an associate editor at Management Science and a senior editor at Strategy Science.

540 Alumni Lane 3212 Gallagher Hall Davis, CA 95616

Headshot of Guru Pundoor

Guru Pundoor

Lecturer

Ph.D., Management Science, R.H. Smith School of Business (2005), University of Maryland, College Park
Master of Science (M.S.), Systems Engineering, Institute for Systems Research (2002), University of Maryland, College Park
Bachelor of Technology, Mechanical Engineering (2000), Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India

Headshot of Olivier Rubel

Olivier Rubel

Professor

Professor Olivier Rubel is fascinated by two related questions: How can firms make better decisions in highly competitive environments? And what are the optimal strategies for implementing these decisions over time?

Rubel’s research examines how companies can best determine and allocate resources to marketing activities when facing a realistic chance of encountering a product harm crisis such as the SUV rollover controversy faced by Ford and Firestone in 2000 or the many product recalls Mattel was forced to make in 2007. His findings point to no single, simple answer to invest less or invest more. Rather, each firm’s best solution depends on the characteristics of the crisis, including its likelihood, its impacts on sales and on the effectiveness of marketing instruments.

(530) 752-3739

540 Alumni Lane 3310 Gallagher Hall Davis, CA 95616

Brett Saraniti

Brett Saraniti

Lecturer

Ph.D., Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

Brett Saraniti received his Ph.D. in managerial economics and decision sciences from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in 1997. His dissertation chair was Roger Myerson, Nobel Laureate 2007. Saraniti is currently a visiting professor of managerial economics and decision sciences at Kellogg and a lecturer at Stanford in the Department of Economics.

Headshot of Harold Schmitz

Harold Schmitz

Senior Scholar

Ph.D., North Carolina State University

A 20-year veteran at Mars, Visiting Professor Harold Schmitz has been chief science officer since 2005. His responsibilities include strategy development, program alignment and quality control of the company’s multidisciplinary scientific research programs. He has previously held various positions within Mars in scientific and regulatory affairs, fundamental research, analytical and applied sciences and corporate functions.

Justin Siegel

Justin B. Siegel, Ph.D.

Arthur and Carlyse Ciocca Visiting Professor in Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Justin Siegel is an associate professor of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine at the UC Davis Genome Center. He received his B.S. in Biochemistry from UC Davis in 2005 and his Ph.D. in Biomolecular Structure and Design from the University of Washington in 2011, after which he returned to UC Davis to begin his research lab.

Robert H. Smiley

Robert H. Smiley

Professor Emeritus

Ph.D., Stanford University 

Research Expertise 
Economics, strategy, public policy, competitive strategy, energy economics, public policy analysis, anti-trust policy, regulation

Consulting 
Public utilities, telecommunications, wine industry, energy, strategy

Portrait of Mark Smith

Mark Smith

Lecturer

Mark Smith is a UC Davis Graduate School of Management alum and director of public policy, Western Region for Ducks Unlimited (DU). 

Smith’s primary responsibilities included managing federal and state government relations in nine Western states (HI, AK, WA, OR, CA, AZ, NV, UT, ID). 

Victor Stango

Victor Stango

Professor

Ph.D., University of California, Davis 

Research Expertise 
Consumer and firm behavior in banking markets, behavioral economics, industrial organization.

Professor Victor Stango’s research focuses on household financial decision making over both short- and long-term time horizons. His current work examines how behavioral influences on consumer decision-making are related to each other, to cognitive abilities and other demographics, and to financial decisions and outcomes. That work is supported by grants from the Michigan Retirement Research Center (MRRC), and by the Pension Research Council/TIAA Institute. Stango has also studied the credit card and ATM markets, and has a side interest in sports economics.

Stango’s work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Business Week, Newsweek and major online business news media. He has appeared on "Good Morning America," Fox News, CNBC, Bloomberg and many other news programs to discuss his work and provide expert commentary. His research has appeared in the American Economic Review, Review of Economic Studies, The Journal of Finance, The Review of Financial Studies and other leading academic journals. Professor Stango is an affiliate expert with Cornerstone Research, occasionally providing consulting in matters related to the financial service industry.

Before joining the Graduate School of Management in 2008, Stango gained experience at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, the Federal Reserve Banks of Chicago and New York, and other academic institutions. He also served for several years on the board of Consumer Credit Research Foundation, a nonprofit research foundation supported by providers of short-term credit.

Stango holds a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in economics and political science from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Ph.D. in economics from UC Davis.

Awards

  • GSM Professor of the Year, Full-Time MBA Program, 2025
  • Research Grant, Michigan Retirement Research Center (MRRC), “Behavioral Factors and Long-Run Financial Well-Being,” 2016-2017.
  • Research Grant, Pension Research Council/TIAA Institute, “Behavioral Factors and Long-Run Financial Well-Being,” 2016-2017.
  • Research Grant, Russell Sage Foundation, “Behavioral Biases in Household Financial Decision-making,” 2010-2012.
  • Professor of the Year Finalist, UC Davis Graduate School of Management, 2010.
  • Research Grant, National Science Foundation, “Information Technology, Outsourcing and Productivity,” 2008-10.
  • Research Grant, Networks, Electronic Commerce, and Telecommunications Institute, Summer 2004, Summer 2006.
  • Research Grant, Filene Institute, “Outsource or Die,” 2006-07.
  • Research Grant, Filene Institute, “Payment Choices,” 2006-08.
  • Research Grant, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), 2006.
  • Allen H. Keally Teaching Award, University of Tennessee, 1999-00.
  • Club 6 (High Teaching Evaluations), Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley, 1998.
  • Finalist, Allen H. Keally Teaching Award, University of Tennessee, 1997-98.

(530) 752-3535

540 Alumni Lane 3202 Gallagher Hall Davis, CA 95616

Headshot of James Stevens

James Stevens

Lecturer

Master of Business Administration (MBA), University of Michigan Ross School of Business
Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), American University

James Stevens is a lecturer in the UC Davis Graduate School of Management, teaching organizational behavior courses in the MBA program and leadership courses in Executive Education. He brings his more than two decades of leadership and senior management experience into the classroom. That experience includes leading diverse and successful teams, launching new programs and developing compelling curricula.

Suzy Taherian

Suzy Taherian

Lecturer

Master of Business Administration (MBA), Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management

Suzy Taherian has over 20 years of experience as a senior executive for international industrial companies. She started her career with Exxon and Chevron and transitioned to CFO of a mid-size company.

Huy Tran

Huy Tran

Lecturer

Master of Business Administration (MBA), UC Davis Graduate School of Management

Huy Tran brings over 15 years of public and private sector experience in technology leadership, business transformation, continuous improvement, project management and data analytics. He has a career that spans higher education, healthcare and, most recently, Fortune 500 Technology.

Professor Chih-Ling portrait photo

Chih-Ling Tsai

Distinguished Professor of Management (Emeritus)

Ph.D., University of Minnesota

Research Expertise 
Regression analysis, model selection, high-dimensional data, time series, biostatistics, application of statistics in business.

Teaching Field 
Statistics

Professor Chih-Ling Tsai is a recognized expert in the practical application of statistics in business, including regression analysis, model selection, high-dimensional data, time series and biostatistics. He has had more than 100 research papers published in academic journals relating to statistics, marketing, finance and biostatistics. He teaches courses on forecasting and managerial research methods, and time series analysis and forecasting.

Tsai earned a Ph.D. in statistics from the University of Minnesota and an Master of Science (M.S.) in mathematics from the University of Illinois, Chicago Circle. He earned his Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in mathematics from Tamkang University.

Awards