Three of the six academic departments at The University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business welcomed new chairs this year, effective Sept. 1. Combined they have published dozens of scholarly papers, served in numerous professional and academic groups and won top teaching awards.
Professor Jay Hartzell follows Laura Starks as chair of the Department of Finance. Hartzell is the Allied Bancshares Centennial Fellow in Finance and the executive director of McCombs’ Real Estate Finance and Investment Center. He joined the university in 2001 after teaching at New York University’s Stern School of Business. Hartzell researches real estate finance and corporate governance and is an associate editor of the Review of Financial Studies, a member of the editorial board of Real Estate Economics and the board of directors of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association.
Professor Prabhudev Konana is the new chair of the Department of Information, Risk and Operations Management, following the tenure of Doug Morrice. Konana is the William H. Seay Centennial Professor of Information Management and a member of the university’s Academy of Distinguished Teachers. He studies the business value of virtual communities, social networks, and outsourcing and offshoring. Konana is or has been an associate editor for leading journals on managing information systems, including Information Systems Research, MIS Quarterly and Decision Sciences. He is also a co-founder of Pragathi, a nonprofit organization that supports primary education in India.
Professor Lillian Mills takes over from Urton Anderson as chair of the Department of Accounting. An award-winning scholar, Mills is the Wilton E. and Catherine A. Thomas Professor in Accounting. She has conducted influential research at the intersection of financial reporting and tax compliance for 15 years. She won the 2005 American Accounting Association Deloitte Wildman Medal for the published paper that has made or is likely to make the most significant contribution to the advancement of the practice of accounting. Mills branded an informal departmental research readings group to become the Texas Tax Readings Group, a model other universities have begun to emulate. She is the immediate past president of the American Taxation Association and is one of a handful of accountants involved in leadership of the National Tax Association, whose broad membership brings together policymakers, economists, academics and legal scholars.
