What is your first U of A memory?
The reception for new faculty at the Alberta School of Business. I met with my cohort as well as other assistant professors. I made lasting friendships, including some who are now at other universities.
What’s something your coworkers don’t know about you?
I have an amateur interest in cosmology.
What’s your favourite distraction?
Watching physics videos, especially on cosmology, special relativity and quantum physics. When I am tired of those, one can always count on cat videos to make your day.
If you were enrolling in one course, program or degree right now, what would it be?
Philosophy. So as to better understand the nature of reality.
You can invite anyone — alive or dead, real or fictional — to dinner. Who would it be?
I would invite Wiley E. Coyote to dinner and serve him a delicious Roadrunner. The whole purpose would be to probe the Coyote’s intense infatuation with catching the Roadrunner. I am afraid though that I might disappoint him since I am a vegetarian and said Roadrunner will give Wiley E. the slip one more time.
More seriously, I would love to invite Socrates, the Buddha and Confucius for a potluck. They were roughly contemporaries and I can’t imagine the direction the dinner conversation will take with the three seated at the same table, not to mention the culinary delights each one would have brought to the potluck.
If you could see any live performance tomorrow, what would it be?
Oscar Peterson, arguably the best Canadian jazz pianist.
What advice would you give your 18-year-old self?
Hopefully any advice I give won’t change the 18-year old’s path in time. Assuming this is true, I would advise him to read more. A lot more. And maybe learn a racquet sport.
What’s one thing you can’t live without?
Travel. To me, travel – especially with someone you would like to come along with you on the journey – is arguably the richest and most rewarding of shared experiences.
What three words describe your U of A experience?
Teaching, research and engagement, in no particular order. I believe each of the three informs and enriches the other two.
Do you have any upcoming projects or initiatives you are looking forward to at work?
Several. International partnerships at both the bachelor’s and master’s levels, new master’s programs, the proposed Cities Institute envisioned as a pan-faculty think tank and a wider integration of analytics in curricula. The aim is to make the Alberta School of Business a globally recognized business school where students come to pursue innovative programs.
