About

I am currently an Assistant Professor of Teaching Organization and Management at UC-Irvine in the Paul Merage School of Business.

My research focuses on the dynamics surrounding the primary “currency” that social actors seek in two domains: creativity/innovation in the music industry and status/rankings in higher education. These two streams are united by an interest in how connections between actors—whether human collaborators, cultural artifacts, or organizations—are utilized as sources of influence, competition, or comparison. In my work, I conceive of direct ties and other relationships as helping to produce, consume, or discern creativity or status, depending on the context.

I use primarily quantitative methods—I am a computational social scientist—and I have developed some “big data” skills as the result of the unique dataset I have collected for my music-related research: extensive data on over 20 million songs and 2 million artists across nearly 75-years.

My work, which has garnered me recognition on the Thinkers 50 Radar list, has appeared in Administrative Science Quarterly, American Sociological Review, computational social science publications, and been covered in the press by Rolling Stone, The Economist, Forbes, Business Insider, Quartz.com, The Times of London, M Magazine, the New York Post, and music industry blogs. You can read more about specific projects here.

Prior to UCI, I was an Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior at INSEAD, where I directed and taught the Product Management Executive Programme and Leading for Results program. This was in addition to other Executive Education teaching, as well as the organizational design and leadership core course in the MBA program. I received the Dean’s commendation for excellence in teaching for both my MBA and Executive teaching multiple times. My teaching focuses primarily on firms’ organisational-strategic alignment (org design), leading and experiencing organisational change, managing corporate culture, and utilizing social networks.

Prior to becoming a business school academic, I had a number of roles in the business and not-for-profit sectors. I was a management consultant for the Monitor Group, working in its strategy practice and its Executive Development group. This was followed by several years as an early member of a start-up in the educational services space. Before returning to school, I was a member of the 2008 Obama Presidential campaign in California.

I received a joint PhD from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and its Sociology department. I also have an MA in Sociology from the University of Chicago and an MBA from Booth, as well as an AB in Psychology from Harvard University.

My CV is available here.

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