The Fox School of Business is pleased to honor these five exceptional doctoral alumni for their contributions to business research, education and industry leadership. Although this year’s Doctoral Alumni Awards event has been postponed due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, we’re proud of these alumni, as well as all of our graduates, for their achievements.
PhD Distinguished Alumni Award: Jeong Bon Kim, PhD ’86, Chair Professor and head of the Department of Accountancy, City University of Hong Kong
Jeong Bon (J.B.) Kim is a distinguished researcher in the fields of accounting and finance. He has held professorships at the University of Waterloo, Syracuse University, Fudan University, Sun Yat-sen University and the Open University of Hong Kong. A prolific researcher, Kim has published dozens of refereed articles in top-tier journals in the fields of accounting, finance and international business. His works on stock price crash risk, corporate tax avoidance and institutional monitoring are highly cited.
Kim also served as an editor and on editorial boards for a variety of prestigious journals, including Contemporary Accounting Research, Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory, and the Journal of the Association for Information Systems.
PhD Alumni Leadership Award: Thomas Monahan, PhD ’81, John M. Cooney Endowed Professor of Accounting and Information Systems and Dean Emeritus, Villanova University
Thomas Monahan is a dedicated leader in research-based business education. He served as the dean of Villanova University’s School of Business, as well as teaching in the undergraduate, MBA, Master of Accountancy and EMBA programs. In 2014, he was appointed Dean Emeritus. Monahan has published research in many academic journals involving topics such as capital budgeting, integrating finance and strategy in decision-making, evaluation and reward systems, improving decision models, and new models for accounting education.
Monahan also brings his business research expertise to industry. He currently serves as chairperson of the audit committee on the Board of Ariba, Inc. He has done consulting work in the areas of valuation, strategic cost management and in helping managers understand how finance can be used to create value in a business. His clients have included Comcast, 3M and Dow Chemical.
PhD Alumni Outstanding Early-Career Award: Yili (Kevin) Hong, PhD ’14, professor in the Department of Decision and Information Systems, University of Houston
As a recent graduate of the Fox PhD program, Yili (Kevin) Hong demonstrates excellent research prowess and a commitment to business education. In his previous role at Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business, he was the director of the PhD programs for the Department of Information Systems and co-director of the Digital Society Initiative. Hong’s research interests are in the areas of sharing economy, digital platforms and human-AI interactions. Hong was honored with the college-wide W. P. Carey Faculty Research Award in 2017 and the Association for Information Systems’ Early Career Award in 2018.
Executive DBA Alumni Distinguished Leadership Award: Kevin Mahoney, DBA ’18, Chief Executive Officer, University of Pennsylvania Health System
Kevin Mahoney is a prominent leader in Philadelphia’s healthcare industry. As CEO of Penn Health and founding director of the Penn Medicine Center for Healthcare Innovation, Mahoney develops visionary health system infrastructure and supports life-saving care delivery strategies. His responsibilities include information technology, strategic planning, primary care network, human resources and capital planning.
His success is grounded in research and data-driven decisions. He highlights his thought leadership in articles such as “3 Ways Health Care Leaders Can Encourage Experimentation,” published by the Harvard Business Review, and speaking at events such as the Fox School’s 2019 “Reinventing Healthcare and Biopharmaceutical Value Chains” symposium. He has also published numerous healthcare articles in prestigious journals such as The New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of Medical Internet Research, JAMA Network Open and Journal of Surgical Education.
Executive DBA Alumni Outstanding Early-Career Research Award: Ofra Bazel-Shoham, DBA ’17, research assistant professor in the Department of Finance, Temple University
Ofra Bazel-Shoham is a passionate researcher who studies how gender impacts business financial and investment activities. Research from her dissertation won the Best Paper Award at the 2018 Engaged Management Scholarship Conference, the premier conference for executive DBA student researchers, faculty and program directors. Her published articles include “The dual effect of board gender diversity on R&D investments” in Long Range Planning and “Impact of the female board members and gaps in linguistic gender marking on cross-border M&A” in the Journal of World Business.
Bazel-Shoham has received research grants for her work on the effect of gender roles on international mergers and acquisitions, and presents her work regularly at academic conferences.
The Fox School is proud to recognize the achievements of these doctoral alumni.