UBC Sauder announces winners of Research and Teaching Awards for 2023/2024
The UBC Sauder School of Business has recognized six faculty members for their outstanding achievements and efforts in teaching and research for the 2023/2024 academic year.
Killam Teaching Award for excellence in undergraduate teaching
Marlisse Silver-Sweeney is the recipient of the UBC Killam Teaching Award for excellence in undergraduate teaching. Marlisse is a deeply committed, original and inspiring instructor who has left a lasting impact on her students. She has developed or co-developed three foundational business communications courses at UBC Sauder. Marlisse brings her experience as a professional communicator, a lawyer and a journalist to the classroom, making assignments and tasks as real-world as possible. She utilizes different delivery methods and modes in innovative ways to build exceptional engagement with students. At the root of Marlisse’s teaching is strong pedagogy based in clear learning outcomes. Marlisse also makes considerable service contributions to the faculty, including supporting new instructors.
The Arne Olsen Teaching Prize for part-time instructors
Dharini Thiruchittampalam is the recipient of The Arne Olsen Teaching Prize for part-time instructors. Since joining the UBC Sauder faculty in 2015, Dharini has enhanced the school’s responsible business and experiential learning curriculum, developed meaningful relationships with the business community, and supported students and colleagues in ways that far surpass the requirements of her part-time teaching responsibilities. Dharini teaches a range of courses at UBC Sauder, including Design Methods for Business Innovation, Sustainability Marketing, and Social Entrepreneurship. These courses draw strong enrolment and enrich students’ abilities to address the complex challenges they will face in their careers. Dharini’s dedication to her students is reflected not only in her exceptional classroom teaching, but also in the ways she connects with students beyond her courses. She regularly attends alumni and student events, graduation ceremonies, and student and career development events. She cares deeply for her students and is unwavering in her advocacy for them. Dharini has contributed significantly to the school and has enriched the lives of students and colleagues.
CPA Teaching Award for excellence in graduate teaching
Pat Reilly is the recipient of The CPA Teaching Award for excellence in graduate teaching. Pat is an exceptional teacher, achieving remarkably high evaluations from students across a variety of courses. Although still an assistant professor, Pat has taught multiple courses (intro OBHR, Development and Negotiations, Power and Politics) in different programs in the RHL. In all cases his ratings were outstanding. Pat is devoted to creating an excellent student experience and uses a variety of media (videos and podcasts) and assignments (industry client projects). A hallmark of Pat’s courses is that he asks students at the beginning of the course what they want to learn and he is careful to customize each course he teaches accordingly. Pat is a dedicated teacher who believes in the impact faculty can have on students’ futures and careers.
Talking Stick Award
Tim Silk is the recipient of The UBC Sauder Alumni Talking Stick Award for his development and leadership of the Brand Management Mentorship Program (BMMP). The purpose of the program is to help UBC Sauder BCom students land coveted brand management roles with leading organizations. These organizations tend to be headquartered in Toronto and Montreal and historically recruited exclusively from business schools in Ontario and Quebec. The BMMP was created in 2007 by a UBC Sauder alumnus in collaboration with Tim to alter this trend. The program focuses on the role of a brand manager, providing students with industry frameworks, help with CV editing, mock interviews, case interviews and guidance at navigating the recruiting process. The program runs in conjunction with the BCC and a group of trained alumni mentors. From its inception, the BMMP has been successful, with 1/3 of students in the very first cohort landing brand management roles at top-tier companies in Toronto. Over the 16 years that the mentorship program has been running, over 350 students have taken part. The BMMP is an excellent, self-reinforcing, pay-it-forward model of alumni engagement that benefits both students and alumni, and Tim has been instrumental in its success.
Research Excellence Award, Junior Category
(For candidates at most 10 years post-Ph.D.).
Guillermo Marshall is the recipient of the UBC Sauder School of Business Research Excellence Award in the Junior category. Guillermo’s research centers on empirical industrial organization (IO) and applied econometrics, with a focus on answering important questions that can inform competition policy and innovation policy. He uses a broad range of empirical methods—from simpler "reduced form" approaches to state-of-the-art structural modelling exercises—and his work is focused on some of the most fundamental competition and innovation policy questions in IO. A common theme is that he customizes the right method to the right research question, letting the data and the economic questions guide his decisions. Since receiving his doctorate in 2014, Guillermo has published thirteen papers on a broad range of topics in the field of industrial organization. In 2019 Guillermo received the International Journal of Industrial Organization Best Theoretical Paper Award for his paper on "Innovation and competition: The role of the product market." Guillermo’s work has made important contributions to the literatures on vertical integration, tournaments, and search/price discrimination.
Research Excellence Award, Senior Category
(For candidates more than 10 years post-Ph.D.).
Russell Lundholm is the recipient of the UBC Sauder School of Business Research Excellence Award in the Senior category. Russell is a world-renowned scholar in accounting, whose publication record reflects versatility and excellence across analytical, empirical, and experimental domains. He has 37 publications, most of which appear in the top accounting journals, and his work has been cited 16,330 times. Russell’s research focuses on the areas of voluntary disclosure, market anomalies, and financial statement analysis. He is best known for his work in the area of voluntary disclosure, where he has provided evidence on how managers decide upon and enhance the credibility of the information conveyed through accounting disclosures. Three of his papers in this area are considered seminal works in the field and have been collectively cited over 10,000 times. Russ is a highly regarded member of the accounting field. He is on the editorial review boards of all the major journals and has been the editor of Review of Accounting Studies for 19 years. Russ is similarly influential at the school, working with PhD students and mentoring many of the junior faculty. Russ is an outstanding scholar who has made significant contributions to the literature, to the field, and to the school.
“Please join me in congratulating these outstanding faculty members,” said Joey Hoegg, Senior Associate Dean, Faculty. “I would also like to recognize those who were nominated but did not win this year. We had many excellent nominations, making the committee’s decision very difficult. Thanks to the nominators who wrote very compelling letters of support, and a huge thank you to the APAC Committee for its work soliciting and reviewing nominations: Harish Krishnan (Chair), Hasan Cavusoglu, Ken Kikkawa, Ali Lazrak, Steven Minns, Mia Raynard, Yanwen Wang/Dale Griffin, and Ira Yeung.”