Core Faculty

Professor Yasin Alan joined the Operations Management group at Owen in 2012 after completing his Ph.D. at Cornell University's Johnson School of Management. His research interests lie in the interface of operations management and corporate finance.

Cliff Ball has taught Owen students statistical analysis and the intricacies of equities, bonds, options, and futures contracts since 1990. He recently co-authored the paper, “True Spreads and Equilibrium Price,” which was published in The Journal of Finance. Cliff also serves as referee for numerous research journals and is an associate editor of The Journal of Empirical Finance. Before coming to Owen, he taught at the University of Michigan and London Business School in the 1980s and worked in New York at Shearson Lehman, specializing in options and fixed income research.

Bruce Barry’s research and expertise lie in two areas: the social issues in management, including ethics, workplace rights, public policy, and the social impact of new media; and the psychology of interpersonal and group behavior in organizations, including power, influence, negotiation, conflict and justice. He has published on these topics in numerous scholarly journals and volumes.

Professor Jesse A. Blocher joined the Finance group at Owen in 2012 after completing his Ph.D. at The University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School.

Nicolas Bollen has had more than a dozen research papers accepted for publication since joining Owen's faculty in 2001, including eight in the top finance journals. His current research agenda is focused on hedge funds. Two of his recent papers have been accepted for publication in the Journal of Finance. Nick’s co-authored paper, “Do Hedge Fund Managers Misreport Returns? Evidence from the Pooled Distribution” was highlighted in the Wall Street Journal and has been downloaded over 1,000 times since it was made publicly available in October 2007.

Michael Burcham has over 20 years of extensive experience in health care innovation, entrepreneurship, and startup venture coaching. He is a highly successful three-time entrepreneur–most recently President of ParadigmHealth, a $300-million disease management firm. In addition to his post at Vanderbilt, Michael serves as President of the Nashville Entrepreneur Center.

Bill Christie’s studies of the major financial markets in the mid-1990s concluded that Nasdaq market makers were implicitly colluding to maintain artificially high trading profits at the expense of investors. His research resulted in sweeping reform of the Nasdaq, introduction of the SEC Order Handling Rules, and a $1.027 billion settlement against the defendants. Bill won first prize for outstanding papers published in the Journal of Finance based on this research. He is a five-time recipient of the EMBA Teaching award and was ranked either first or second among star faculty in each Business Week ranking from 1992 through 2000.

Nancy Hyer is an Associate Professor at Vanderbilt's Owen Graduate School of Management. Nancy earned her MBA and Ph.D. from Indiana University and holds a BS from the University of Richmond. At Owen, Nancy teaches executive and MBA classes focused on project management and process improvement. Nancy has also taught at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She has won executive program, Executive MBA, and MBA teaching awards, and both school and university-wide awards for excellence in undergraduate education. She won the 2009 best paper award from the Journal of Operations Management for a study co-authored with a faculty member from Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Professor Tae-Youn Park joined the Organization Studies group at Owen in 2012 after completing his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management. His research interests include the individual and organizational consequences of compensation, and voluntary and involuntary employee turnover.

Professor Ratchford is an expert in consumer behavior and game theory-based models of marketing strategy. He joined the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management after completing his Ph.D. in marketing at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado in Boulder, where he taught marketing research and consumer behavior and was awarded the Gerald Hart Research Fellowship and the University Fellowship.

Mark Cannon is seasoned executive coach and is an expert in teaching skills for executive coaching, delivering feedback, and handling difficult conversations. He has published books and articles on these topics. He has taught in George Washington University's Coaching Certification Program, and coached or consulted with Courage Capital Management, Vanderbilt University Medical School, Women's World Banking, DCI, Monitor Company, Marriott Corporation, Little Planet Learning, and the U.S. Department of State.

Corey has held various U.S. and International Marketing and Business Development positions at eBay, CitySearch, and Amazon.com. Corey is a co-founder and the Chief Executive Officer of Uloop, Inc., an online classifieds platform for colleges and universities, and is an active angel investor in Internet Media and E-Commerce companies.

Professor Freyermuth joined the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University faculty as an adjunct in 2007 and visits Nashville to teach Commercial Real Estate Transactions during our spring semester.  He is also the Curators' Teaching Professor at University of Missouri, Columbia Law School and teaches in the areas of Property, Real Estate, and Secured Transactions, and has co-authored widely-used texts in all three areas.

Roberta Goodman, a well-respected health care analyst, will join the faculty of the Health Care MBA program at Vanderbilt's Owen Graduate School of Management in January. A perennial favorite on lists of top analysts in financial publications including the Wall Street Journal and Institutional Investor, Goodman is now a principal with Nashville-based Health Care Analytics, a strategic consulting firm specializing in the health care services industry.

Professor Jones entire professional career was with KPMG LLP, from which he retired in May 2006 after serving as Managing Partner of the Nashville office since 1999.

Grant Kinnett is responsible for Boyle Nashville’s retail property portfolio which consists of 800,000 square feet and over 1.8 million square feet in the planning and development stages.

Professor McElroy is presently a member of the Cumberland Law Group, LLPC focusing on corporate law, mergers and acquisitions, venture capital, start-up and development stage companies, technology, and real estate.

Bill Megginson is a Visiting Professor at Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management and Professor and Rainbolt Chair in Finance at the University of Oklahoma’s Michael F. Price College of Business. He is also Executive Director of the Privatization Barometer.

J. Gary Seay has been teaching healthcare information technology in the Health Care MBA program since 2011. He joined Community Health Systems in February 1997 and serves as Senior Vice President & Chief Information Officer.

Dr. Shurney teaches in the Owen School’s Master in Health Care program. He is also Assistant Professor, Public Health/Health Policy and Chief Medical Director, Employee Health Plan at the Vanderbilt School of Medicine.

Professor Smiley was appointed Faculty Director of Owen's new Americas MBA program in 2012. As former Prinicipal at Deloitte Consulting, Jeff has vast business experience in several countries which will be invaluable in our new program.

Rita Sowell teaches a mathematics preparation class that includes college algebra, linear systems and differential calculus to incoming MBA Students with limited mathematical experience.

William "Jim" Vosburg is the Manager of the Office of Training and Logistics (OTL) for the Office of Secure Transportation (OST). OTL is responsible for all organizational training within OST. This not only includes Agent related training but also the professional development training of all OST employees. Training takes place at various venues throughout the continental United States.