Celebrating the Women Leaders of FAU Business

As a tribute to Women's History Month, we celebrate all the remarkable women of FAU Business. We want to specifically recognize several of our female faculty who inspire both women and men, through their exemplary leadership and dedication to their research, service, and teaching. 

Siri Terjesen, Ph.D. (Strategy & Entrepreneurship)

Associate Dean for Research and External Relations, Executive Director of the Madden Center for Value Creation, and Phil Smith Professor of Entrepreneurship

“Although I’ve examined different contexts such as start-ups and corporate boards, one of the key themes of my research is the value of women’s active participation in the labor market.

“ I hope my research has provided insights on practices that can help women to pursue rewarding careers—for example to improve the likelihood of success when starting a business, or move up the echelons of corporations into senior leadership and board directorships. My most recent research investigates the key role of markets rather than big government in providing the incentives for women to join and rejoin the labor market.”

Dr. Terjesen is ranked among the world’s top 2 percent of most cited researchers by Stanford University.

Mary Kay Boyd, Ph.D. (English)

Director of Business Communications Department; University Instructor

“I have a plan for involving women in business research and publishing that I hope will influence or inspire women in the Business Communication field. As instructors assigned with teaching but not research assignments, we don’t have dedicated time to write articles for publication. I am asking interested faculty members to participate (and eventually take over) as a group in my ongoing research on problematic communication situations facing business leaders, using up-to-date scientific sources to support a new approach for leaders to recognize these situations, understand why they react to them as they do, and improve their responses where necessary. The women on our faculty are clearly able to speak up and be heard; they will now enjoy the opportunity to publish and be read. They will also be instrumental in modernizing our Business Communication curriculum based on informed decisions grounded by scientific discoveries. Finally, as they move into leadership roles, they will recognize the communication pitfalls that business leaders face, know how to handle them, and be successful leaders.”

“All of the women and men on the Business Communications faculty along with many administrative leaders/faculty/staff from around the college and university have and are still contributing to making our collaborative events a success. Led by Dr. Joe Compomizzi, FAU has collaborated with Erasmus+, a European educational organization with 640,000 participants and a 3.8B Euro budget. FAU is the only university outside the European Union invited by Erasmus+ to participate in its job shadowing and exchange activities. After hosting two groups of Italian faculty here in Florida, three of our faculty will travel to present at the Istituto in Italy.”

Tamara Dinev, Ph.D. (Theoretical Physics)

Chair of the Department of Information Technology and Operations Management (ITOM); Dean’s Distinguished Research Fellow (‘18-’20; ‘22-’24)

“The best way to inspire future female business researchers and leaders in their fields is to strive to be a role model in everything I do. On a personal level, I do this through my communications, teaching, service and rigor in my research, including information privacy, trust in online transactions and vendors, multicultural aspects of information technology usage and online behavior, and organizational and individual/employee behavior regarding computer and information security.

Dr. Dinev was ranked among the world’s top 2 percent of most cited researchers by Stanford University.

Monica Escaleras, Ph.D. (Economics)

Chair of the Department of Economics; founder and Director of the Business and Economics Polling Initiative (BEPI); Professor

Dr. Escaleras hopes to inspire other Hispanic women to aspire to leadership positions:

“Be ambitious and plan your career journey. From personal experience…influence doesn’t just manifest itself in your words, but also in your actions. Completing projects on time, in a quality way, and with enthusiasm and innovation shows reliability, which in turn builds your influence. Your commitment speaks volumes about you and can be just as influential as your opinions. Being known for unquestionable reliability means others can count on you for your input and to deliver in a crunch.”

-FAU-