About University of Pennsylvania

Al Filreis serves as the Kelly Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where he has been teaching since 1985. He is the founder and faculty director of the Kelly Writers House, director of the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing, and co-director of PennSound alongside Charles Bernstein. Additionally, he publishes Jacket2 and hosts the podcast series PoemTalk, in collaboration with the Kelly Writers House, PennSound, and the Poetry Foundation. His notable works include Counter-Revolution of the Word: The Conservative Attack on Modern Poetry, 1945-60, Wallace Stevens and the Actual World, and Modernism from Right to Left. He has also edited Secretaries of the Moon, a collection of letters between José Rodríguez-Feo and Wallace Stevens, and introduced a new edition of Ira Wolfert's Tucker's People. Currently, he is working on a book examining poetry and poetics in 1960. Filreis has received numerous teaching awards at Penn, including being named Pennsylvania Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation in 1999-2000. His course ModPo is rooted in English 88, which he has taught for three decades.

Dr. Alan M. Barstow is a distinguished author, consultant, and educator specializing in organizational design, change processes, and sustainable development. He serves as the Director and Senior Scholar of the Organizational Dynamics Program at the University of Pennsylvania and co-founded INTERACT: The Institute for Interactive Management in 1986, where he also served on the Board of Directors. Previously, he was a Faculty Research Associate at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Barstow engages with executives and professionals to help them rethink strategic goals and develop effective change strategies. A Fulbright Scholar, he earned his PhD in Anthropology from Columbia University.

Alyssa Swanson is the Intensive Program Manager for the English Language Programs at the University of Pennsylvania, where she oversees the daily operations of the Intensive English program, featuring nearly 40 courses across eight proficiency levels, from beginner to advanced. With over seven years of experience in international education, Ms. Swanson has managed programs abroad, organized and facilitated international student and service-learning initiatives, and provided student advising and instruction. Her passion lies in supporting international students learning English. An avid traveler, she enjoys exploring new countries and cultures during her time off and has lived with a host family in Seville, Spain, and worked in London, England, and Thessaloniki, Greece. Ms. Swanson holds an M.S.Ed in TESOL from Temple University and a B.A. in Spanish and Public Relations/Advertising from Penn State University.

Dr. Amol Navathe, MD, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. A practicing physician, health economist, and engineer, he specializes in delivery transformation and policy design, leveraging advanced health data analytics and technology to enhance healthcare delivery across numerous large health systems. His expertise includes analyzing physician and hospital economic behavior, focusing on claims data to assess care costs, quality, and appropriateness, which is crucial for evaluating health system performance and policy design. Dr. Navathe has significant experience with large-scale government initiatives, having served as Medical Officer and Senior Program Manager for the $1 billion federal Comparative Effectiveness Research program. He is also a thought leader in the field, founding the academic journal Health Care: The Journal of Delivery Science and Innovation, where he serves as Co-Editor-in-Chief, and is the Founding Director of the Foundation for Healthcare Innovation. His impactful research on healthcare costs and quality has been published in top journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Health Affairs, and Health Services Research. Dr. Navathe completed his medical training at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, pursued post-graduate training at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and earned his PhD in Health Care Management and Economics at The Wharton School at Penn.

Experienced Educator and Business Professional at the University of Pennsylvania

Mr. Kandel serves as the Global Chief Compliance Officer, Senior Legal Counsel, and Senior Managing Director at Cerberus Capital Management, L.P., one of the world’s foremost private investment firms, having joined in 2007. He oversees the compliance functions for the firm’s diverse activities in private equity, lending, real estate, and trading across 18 global offices. In addition to his compliance role, he is an active member of several key committees, including the Compliance and Risk Management Committee, Valuation Committee, and is the Chair of the Environmental, Social and Governance Committee. Before Cerberus, he was the First Vice President and Assistant General Counsel at Merrill Lynch from 1998 to 2007, focusing on state regulation, legislation, and government relations, and managing various compliance issues related to the SEC and other regulatory bodies. Earlier in his career, Mr. Kandel was the Chief of the Investor Protection & Securities Bureau at the New York State Attorney General’s Office, where he oversaw the prosecution of numerous securities fraud cases and conducted public hearings on key issues like Microcap Securities Fraud. His extensive legal career also includes roles as Senior Special Counsel at the New York Stock Exchange's Enforcement Division and as an Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan. Mr. Kandel graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Economics and Political Science and earned his law degree from the same institution, where he currently serves as a Lecturer in Law, teaching Corporate Governance and Compliance.

Dr. Angela Lee Duckworth is a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, where she investigates non-IQ competencies like self-control and grit, which significantly predict academic and professional success. Her research has spanned various populations, including West Point cadets, National Spelling Bee finalists, novice teachers, salespeople, and students. Dr. Duckworth earned her B.A. in Neurobiology from Harvard in 1992 and, as a Marshall Scholar, obtained a Master's in Neuroscience from Oxford. She completed her Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Before her research career, she founded a nonprofit summer school for low-income children, which received the Better Government Award in Massachusetts and was featured as a Harvard Kennedy School case study. Additionally, she has experience as a McKinsey management consultant and spent five years teaching math in public schools across San Francisco, Philadelphia, and New York City. In recognition of her impactful work, she was selected as a MacArthur Fellow in 2013.

Angus Corbett is an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania, focusing on the potential of regulation to enhance quality of life and address urgent national and global challenges. Since immigrating to the United States in 2012, he has concentrated on how regulation can shape healthcare systems to achieve the triple aim: improving healthcare quality, enhancing population health, and reducing costs. At Penn Law, he plans to develop and teach a comparative health systems course while conducting research on making healthcare systems more responsive to healthcare professionals' decisions. In addition to his academic work, Angus is a consultant on a project aimed at leveraging regulation to promote health equity in housing, investigating how regulators at various levels can facilitate equitable access to affordable, healthy housing. He was also involved in the 2015 Regulatory Excellence project with the Penn Program on Regulation.

Anita L. Allen, JD, PhD, MA, is a distinguished scholar in privacy law, bioethics, and contemporary values, renowned for her work in tort law, legal philosophy, women's rights, and race relations. She holds a JD from Harvard Law School and a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Michigan. At the University of Pennsylvania, she serves as the Vice Provost for Faculty and the Henry R. Silverman Professor of Law and Philosophy. In 2010, she was appointed by President Obama to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. Allen has authored several influential books, including Unpopular Privacy: What Must We Hide (Oxford, 2011) and Privacy Law and Society (Thomson/West, 2011), and has published over a hundred scholarly articles along with contributions to popular media. She is a frequent guest on national television and radio programs, and has served on various editorial and advisory boards, as well as the boards of numerous nonprofits, including the Hastings Center and EPIC, where she received a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014.

Barbara E. Kahn is the Patty and Jay H. Baker Professor of Marketing and the Director of the Jay H. Baker Retailing Center at The Wharton School, a position she has held since January 2011. Before returning to Wharton, Barbara served as Dean and Schein Family Chair Professor of Marketing at the University of Miami, where she significantly enhanced the school's research and teaching capabilities by launching global initiatives and forming partnerships with the business community. Her leadership helped elevate the school’s rankings and fostered a robust academic environment, exemplified by the establishment of the Global Business Forum, which attracted over 1,000 industry leaders to campus.

Brandon Krakowsky is a Lecturer at the School of Engineering and serves as the Director of Data Science and Research at the Wharton AI & Analytics Initiative. In this pivotal role, he oversees the development of innovative analytics solutions and cultivates partnerships with companies and organizations worldwide. Brandon leads a dedicated team responsible for designing, executing, and managing data-driven research and experiential learning projects, applying cutting-edge analytics methodologies to real-world challenges.

Brian Bushee serves as the Gilbert and Shelley Harrison Professor of Accounting at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, having joined in 2000 after holding positions at Harvard Business School and the University of Chicago. His background includes experience as a Senior Credit Analyst at CoreStates Financial Corp. and a National Office Researcher for Coopers and Lybrand L.L.P. With a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and an A.B. from Duke University, Dr. Bushee's research focuses on how information intermediaries—such as institutional investors, sell-side analysts, and the business press—affect corporate disclosure and stock market pricing. He teaches an MBA elective called "Problems in Financial Reporting" and has taught financial accounting at Wharton, Harvard, and Chicago. His excellence in teaching is recognized through awards, including the MBA Excellence in Teaching Award and the Helen Kardon Moss Anvil Award for outstanding teaching quality.

Brian McManus is a Language Specialist at the University of Pennsylvania’s English Language Programs (ELP), where he has been teaching since 2011. Originally from Ireland, Brian pursued his undergraduate studies in the UK before teaching in Madrid, Spain, for two years and then in the San Francisco Bay Area for seven years. In California, he taught at various adult language programs, including Language Studies International (LSI), Contra Costa Community College, Alameda Adult School, and the International Rescue Committee (IRC), where he coordinated an English Language for Job Seeking Skills program for recently resettled refugees and asylees. He earned a BA in Theatre and Film Studies from London Metropolitan University and an MA in English (TESOL) from San Francisco State University.

Dr. Taylor earned his A.B. degree in Electrical Computer and Systems Engineering from Harvard College in 1988 and both his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Yale University in 1990 and 1994, respectively. He was recognized as the Jamaica Scholar in 1984, was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa society at Harvard, and held a Harvard College Scholarship from 1986 to 1988. Following his doctoral studies, Dr. Taylor was a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1994 to 1997. He joined the Computer and Information Science Department at the University of Pennsylvania in September 1997. Dr. Taylor received an NSF CAREER award in 1998 and the Lindback Minority Junior Faculty Award in 2001. His research focuses on Computer Vision and Robotics, encompassing areas such as 3D model reconstruction from images, vision-guided robot navigation, and smart camera networks. He has served as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions of Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence and participated in various conference organizing committees, including as Program Chair for the 2006 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition and the 2013 3DV conference. In 2012, he was honored with the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation Award for Distinguished Teaching at the University of Pennsylvania.

Cade Massey is a Practice Professor in the Wharton School’s Operations, Information and Decisions Department. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago and taught at Duke University and Yale University before moving to Penn. Massey’s research focuses on judgment under uncertainty—how, and how well, people predict what will happen in the future. His work draws on experimental and “real world” data such as employee stock options, 401k savings, the National Football League draft, and graduate school admissions. His research has led to long-time collaborations with Google, Merck, and multiple professional sports franchises. Massey’s research has been published in leading psychology and management journals, and covered by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, The Economist, and National Public Radio. He has taught MBA and Executive MBA courses for 15 years, receiving teaching awards for courses on negotiation, influence, organizational behavior and human resources. He also co-teaches Wharton's “People Analytics” MOOC on Coursera. Massey is faculty co-director of Wharton People Analytics, co-host of “Wharton Moneyball” on SiriusXM Business Radio, and co-creator of the Massey-Peabody NFL Power Rankings for the Wall Street Journal.

Christian Terwiesch holds the Andrew M. Heller Professorship at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he also serves as a Professor in the Operations and Information Management department and a Senior Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute for Health Economics. He is the co-author of Matching Supply with Demand, a widely utilized textbook in Operations Management now in its third edition, and has received multiple teaching awards for his contributions to Wharton’s MBA program. Terwiesch has collaborated with various organizations, from startups to Fortune 500 companies, focusing on innovation and business process improvement. His recent research is primarily centered on healthcare, with projects that include designing patient-centered care processes within the VA hospital system, analyzing the effects of emergency room crowding on hospital revenues at Penn Medicine, and optimizing ICU bed usage at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Additionally, he has worked on innovation management, contributing to the clinical development portfolio at Merck and developing open innovation systems and innovation tournaments for large healthcare organizations.

Dr. Chris Geczy has been a member of the Finance Faculty at Wharton since 1997, serving as the Academic Director of the Jacobs Levy Equity Management Center for Quantitative Financial Research and the Wharton Wealth Management Initiative at Wharton Executive Education. He is known for his innovative teaching in investment management, having co-created the first full course on hedge funds at The Wharton School, as well as the course on Impact Investing and several executive education offerings. A Fellow of the Wharton Financial Institutions Center, Dr. Geczy has held prestigious fellowships, including the New York Stock Exchange Fellow and the Geewax-Terker Fellow at the Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research. He has directed numerous executive education programs, such as the 2009 Securities Industry Institute in collaboration with SIFMA, along with programs focused on endowments, foundations, alternative investments, and advanced investment strategies.

Dr. Claire Robertson-Kraft holds a Ph.D. in education policy and currently serves as a post-doctoral fellow and the Associate Director of Operation Public Education at The University of Pennsylvania. She co-edited A Grand Bargain for Education Reform: New Rewards and Supports for New Accountability (Harvard Education Press, 2009), which offers a comprehensive framework for evaluating, compensating, and developing teachers. Her research delves into how education policies affect teachers' motivation, effectiveness, and retention. After graduating from Penn in 2004, Claire worked with Teach For America in Houston, where she began as a third-grade teacher and later became a program director supporting elementary and special education teachers, igniting her passion for urban education. Additionally, Claire is actively engaged in the Philadelphia civic community, serving as the Co-Founder and current President of PhillyCORE Leaders and holding positions on the boards of YouthBuild Philadelphia, Leadership Philadelphia, and Russell Byers Charter School.

Connie Scanga is a Practice Professor of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, where she has made significant contributions since 2000. She earned her Ph.D. in Exercise Physiology from Temple University in 1994 and has taught Anatomy & Physiology for over 20 years at various institutions, including the Community College of Philadelphia, Eastern University, and Temple University. After a three-year research fellowship at the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research in Wellington, New Zealand, Dr. Scanga returned to academia and has since co-taught the innovative course Integrated Anatomy, Physiology & Physical Assessment, a foundational class for undergraduate nursing majors. Her excellence in teaching has been recognized with multiple awards, including the School of Nursing’s Dean’s Award for Undergraduate Teaching in 2006 and the University of Pennsylvania Provost’s Award for Teaching Excellence by Non-Standing Faculty in 2009. Outside of her professional commitments, she enjoys traveling, gardening, rock climbing, and participating in conversational Spanish classes.

David T. Galligan, VMD, MBA, is a professor of animal health economics and the director of the Center for Animal Health and Productivity at Penn Vet. His research focuses on evaluating the economic value of veterinary technologies and management strategies within animal production systems. Dr. Galligan is dedicated to enhancing the role of veterinary medicine in promoting economic and environmental efficiency alongside animal health. Currently, his economic research involves developing various visual analytical tools designed to aid management decision-making in dairy production, contributing to advancements in the field.