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WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.240 2 00:00:01.240 --> 00:00:03.760 My research, really, stems from my background 3 00:00:03.760 --> 00:00:05.840 in industry, which I think is relevant 4 00:00:05.840 --> 00:00:10.000 when we're talking about working with applied, more applied DBA 5 00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:10.880 students. 6 00:00:10.880 --> 00:00:13.560 I worked at Deloitte Consulting for several years 7 00:00:13.560 --> 00:00:15.640 doing strategy consulting, and then 8 00:00:15.640 --> 00:00:19.560 moved into working for our CEO and chief transformation 9 00:00:19.560 --> 00:00:22.480 officer, chief strategy officer. 10 00:00:22.480 --> 00:00:24.840 And while I was there, what I noticed 11 00:00:24.840 --> 00:00:28.240 most was so many of the challenges that arise in running 12 00:00:28.240 --> 00:00:31.520 these huge businesses, like Deloitte or Fortune 500 13 00:00:31.520 --> 00:00:33.680 companies, has to do with people. 14 00:00:33.680 --> 00:00:35.700 And that was what I was most fascinated with. 15 00:00:35.700 --> 00:00:38.240 And so my value for learning and discovery 16 00:00:38.240 --> 00:00:39.660 led me back to academia. 17 00:00:39.660 --> 00:00:42.240 And so it's a joy now to be a professor where 18 00:00:42.240 --> 00:00:45.480 I can teach about topics and research 19 00:00:45.480 --> 00:00:48.080 about topics related to people. 20 00:00:48.080 --> 00:00:53.720 And so when I'm not teaching or running programs and helping out 21 00:00:53.720 --> 00:00:56.280 around the department, around our school, 22 00:00:56.280 --> 00:01:00.520 my research is related to mental health at work, 23 00:01:00.520 --> 00:01:03.730 workers who are more vulnerable maybe 24 00:01:03.730 --> 00:01:07.690 have stigmatized identities like women in business 25 00:01:07.690 --> 00:01:10.570 or for example, a new population of the workforce 26 00:01:10.570 --> 00:01:14.130 called the gig economy, so workers who work off the grid. 27 00:01:14.130 --> 00:01:17.090 I'm sure we can all relate to having to work 28 00:01:17.090 --> 00:01:19.310 in socially remote conditions. 29 00:01:19.310 --> 00:01:23.650 And so those are just a snapshot of the type of research topics 30 00:01:23.650 --> 00:01:26.090 that I work on right now. 31 00:01:26.090 --> 00:01:28.330 Yeah, I think one of the projects that's 32 00:01:28.330 --> 00:01:33.770 most relevant to this group, so I do academic-related projects 33 00:01:33.770 --> 00:01:36.010 that would be published in journals that I 34 00:01:36.010 --> 00:01:39.010 would help you learn to read, if you're interested. 35 00:01:39.010 --> 00:01:41.090 But this particular project that I'm working on 36 00:01:41.090 --> 00:01:45.110 happens to be a student project that is incredibly applied, 37 00:01:45.110 --> 00:01:48.930 and it's actually under revision at a very applied journal, which 38 00:01:48.930 --> 00:01:50.670 means that it's going to get published. 39 00:01:50.670 --> 00:01:55.010 It started as a thesis project, where I had a student come to me 40 00:01:55.010 --> 00:01:58.370 and say that she was incredibly interested in authenticity 41 00:01:58.370 --> 00:02:00.650 at work because what she was finding 42 00:02:00.650 --> 00:02:03.550 is as a woman who veils diligently 43 00:02:03.550 --> 00:02:05.510 for her religious practice, and also 44 00:02:05.510 --> 00:02:09.550 a woman who is highly empowered and working in one 45 00:02:09.550 --> 00:02:12.990 of the biggest, most respected banks in the US, 46 00:02:12.990 --> 00:02:15.370 it was really difficult to balance the two. 47 00:02:15.370 --> 00:02:16.690 And she had a lot of questions. 48 00:02:16.690 --> 00:02:19.230 And so what we did over the course of the year 49 00:02:19.230 --> 00:02:22.430 was conducted interviews in a reasonable way 50 00:02:22.430 --> 00:02:25.470 that she could combine with her extracurriculars and her studies 51 00:02:25.470 --> 00:02:29.530 that helped us arrive at new insights about this question. 52 00:02:29.530 --> 00:02:33.450 And so when I work on highly applied problems, 53 00:02:33.450 --> 00:02:35.150 my goal for working with these students 54 00:02:35.150 --> 00:02:38.870 is to help clarify what the question is, help you understand 55 00:02:38.870 --> 00:02:41.670 what's out there that has already answered 56 00:02:41.670 --> 00:02:44.910 this question so that we can come up with something new 57 00:02:44.910 --> 00:02:45.530 together. 58 00:02:45.530 --> 00:02:48.550 So that is one example. 59 00:02:48.550 --> 00:02:52.290 I'll give you one more example that I'm working on right now. 60 00:02:52.290 --> 00:02:54.010 We actually just put it under review. 61 00:02:54.010 --> 00:02:55.950 It's a project I'm really proud of. 62 00:02:55.950 --> 00:03:00.650 What we did was we looked at workers in the gig economy, 63 00:03:00.650 --> 00:03:04.060 and these happened to be a bunch of freelance journalists. 64 00:03:04.060 --> 00:03:06.800 And one of the things that we noticed from interviews 65 00:03:06.800 --> 00:03:09.960 that we did with these workers, that is a major struggle when 66 00:03:09.960 --> 00:03:14.480 you're alone, sitting in your room trying to be productive 67 00:03:14.480 --> 00:03:16.360 and also feeling well. 68 00:03:16.360 --> 00:03:20.520 And so as professors, I worked with a team of professors 69 00:03:20.520 --> 00:03:21.260 on this. 70 00:03:21.260 --> 00:03:23.680 We said, what if we give this group a tool? 71 00:03:23.680 --> 00:03:26.560 And let's set it up with an experimental paradigm 72 00:03:26.560 --> 00:03:30.640 so that we can start to test a tool that we could go out 73 00:03:30.640 --> 00:03:33.720 to other people in practice, other people in the gig economy 74 00:03:33.720 --> 00:03:35.180 and say, this tool works. 75 00:03:35.180 --> 00:03:40.000 And so what we actually found is that if you as gig workers 76 00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:43.040 or perhaps if you're working socially remote, if you use 77 00:03:43.040 --> 00:03:46.280 something called a Pomodoro technique in a Zoom room 78 00:03:46.280 --> 00:03:49.360 with other people for an hour, you'll actually 79 00:03:49.360 --> 00:03:52.980 get more work done and feel better as a result. 80 00:03:52.980 --> 00:03:57.560 And so these are two examples of projects that are highly applied 81 00:03:57.560 --> 00:04:01.060 and have real novel insights that can really help people. 82 00:04:01.060 --> 00:04:04.410 [DRAMATIC SOUND] 83 00:04:04.410 --> 00:04:06.000