Home > Gazette > August 2007

August 1, 2007

FACULTY-STAFF NEWS

New to the School

Kristin Branch has joined the School of Business as director of the A.C. Nielsen Center for Marketing Research. Branch comes to the business school from Spectrum Brands where she was a senior brand manager for Remington products for the past three years.  She has extensive experience in marketing, marketing research and business management. Most recently, her research project have involved concept testing and synthesis of consumption data and consumer insights. Prior to Spectrum, she worked at GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare North America for two years, managing brands such as Aquafresh, Abreva, Debrox and Chap-et. She also has held marketing positions at W.W. Grainger, Inc., GMR Marketing and Wheel & Sprocket. Branch earned her MBA in Marketing and Entrepreneurship from the School of Business in 2002.

Sarah Barber has accepted the position of student services coordinator in the Business Career Center. Barber joins the School of Business from the Office of Career Services at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she was the assistant director for the past two years. She has extensive experience in advising and counseling business students. Barber earned her M.A. in Higher Education Administration from the University of Michigan.

Vicky Myint has joined the Enterprise MBA programs - the Evening and Executive MBA - as assistant director. Myint was previously the business development manager for the Center for Advanced Studies in Business (CASB), which operates the Fluno Center and offers custom programming for Executive Education. She also has previously held positions as a senior business analyst with Spectrum Brands and as a senior business research analyst with NameProtect. She earned her Executive MBA from the School of Business and has a B.S. in business administration from George Mason University.

Melani Quarles has joined the Undergraduate Program Office as student status examiner 2.  She comes to the School of Business from the Sheldon Lubar School of Business at UW-Milwaukee, where she provided administrative support for the Office of the Dean, and several other units.

Accomplishments

Real Estate Professor Steve Malpezzi had a trip to Beijing recently sponsored by The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Malpezzi gave an invited presentation on "The Economics of Affordable Housing," to the Development Research Center of China's State Council. In July, Malpezzi spent a week at the Rockefeller Foundation's conference center at Bellagio, Italy, where he participated in Rockefeller's "Global Urban Summit:  Innovations for an Urban World."  Among other activities, he presented his paper "Urban Development at Six Scales."

Michael Mihelbergel, executive director of the James A. Graaskamp Center for Real Estate, has been appointed to Urban Land Institute's Commercial & Retail Development Leadership Council.  He attended the 2007 ULI North American Councils Summer Leadership Summit in Vail, Colo. in July.