Researchers at Smith
The professors at Smith School of Business are active in all areas of business and organizational research. They collaborate with scholars worldwide, publish in leading journals, and inspire each other to explore new lines of enquiry.
Meet Our Faculty Researchers
Explore our researcher's profiles to learn about their interests, publications, and how they are advancing knowledge to impact management practice and public policy. Whether you are a prospective student, fellow researcher, or industry partner, we invite you to connect and collaborate.
Researcher Spotlight
Sarah Burrows
Assistant Professor
Nurturing Defenders of the Family Firm
Non-family employees may not share your last name — but they share your culture.
The Hidden Forces Behind Family Firms
Understanding how family dynamics influence the willingness to pursue entrepreneurship.
Researcher Awards
Individual Award
Vedat Verter, CORS Award of Merit
This award recognizes Vedat’s significant contributions to operations research, particularly in healthcare, supply chains, and public sector systems. He has published extensively in these areas, led numerous research initiatives, and mentored a generation of OR professionals in Canada and internationally.
Publication Awards & Accolades
Goce Andrevski, Julian Barling, and Matthias Spitzmuller
A paper co-authored by Goce Andrevski, former PhD and postdoctoral researcher Melissa Trivisonno, Julian Barling, and Matthias Spitzmuller, Forbearance leadership: Doing without doing, was selected for the best paper proceedings of the Eighty-fourth Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management (top 10% of the accepted papers).
Erica Pimentel
Erica Pimentel’s paper, When Worlds Collide: Auditor Expansion into the Blockchain Field, co-authored with Emilio Boulianne and Crawford Spence, received the 2024 CAAA Lazaridis Institute Prize for Best Paper on Accounting Issues Relevant to Technology Firms.
Anthony Goerzen
Anthony Goerzen’s paper, Unleashing the Power of Local Value Chain Interventions: Accelerating Livelihood Upgrading to Empower Women in Fragile Contexts, co-authored with Smith PhD candidate Shengwen Li, was shortlisted for the Best Paper (“That’s Interesting”) Award at the Academy of International Business annual conference from a pool of over 1,700 submissions.
Juan Francisco Chavez Ramirez
Juan Francisco Chavez Ramirez was awarded the European Group for Organizational Studies Best Paper Award 2023 with his co-author Matt Murphy. The paper, “Institutional subversion through performative acts: The emergence of aboriginal monitoring programs in the Canadian oil pipeline industry” was part of Juan Francisco’s doctoral research.
Researcher Directory
Research Interests
Name
Postdoctoral Fellows
Pedro Vanni
Pedro Vanni joined Smith School of Business as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Organizational Behaviour in 2026, under the supervision of Dr. Eddy Ng.
His research explores prosocial behaviour, including altruism and generosity, as well as positive experiences at work, such as employee well-being, work engagement, and positive emotions. He is also interested in workplace virtues, particularly gratitude and compassion, and in the role of companionate love in fostering positive workplace relationships and inclusion. His work connects these interests with broader questions of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
In addition, Pedro has a background in psychometrics, with a particular interest in the evaluation of psychometric properties and the validation of psychological assessment instruments. Pedro is a member of the EDII Research Cluster at Smith, which explores diversity, equity, and inclusion across a variety of contexts.
Ruochen Wang
Dr. Ruochen Wang is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Management Analytics at the Smith School of Business. He holds a PhD in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Virginia Tech and specializes in healthcare operations, incentive design, and data-driven decision-making.
Dr. Wang's research combines mathematical modelling, optimization, and simulation to improve decision-making in healthcare systems. A central focus is understanding how individual behavior and incentives interact with limited resources and uncertainty to influence access to care and health outcomes. His work seeks to develop policies that improve resource allocation, support patient engagement, and address healthcare disparities. By connecting behavioral insights with analytical methods, he aims to inform healthcare decisions that balance efficiency, equity, and patient choice.