Keegan Pace graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2015 with a degree in Philosophy. Upon graduation, he worked as an Applications Sales Representative at Oracle Corporation for almost two years. Keegan left Oracle in 2017 to join Teach For America, where he served as a 6th grade math teacher at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School in Charlotte, NC. As a teacher, Keegan worked with his cohort to analyze student data and strategically design lesson plans, resulting in increased EOG proficiency in his classroom and on his hallway. He also worked on school committees that advocated for English Language Learners and voiced staff concerns to the school’s administrative team. Keegan was an assistant coach for MLK Middle School’s boys basketball team and tutored students as an Academic Liaison for LifeHoops, a nonprofit that combines basketball, mentorship, and academics to empower young men as leaders in their communities. Keegan is currently pursuing a dual MPP/JD at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy and the University of North Carolina School of Law.
Shannon works on corporate fundraising and engagement programs related to the institute’s annual grand challenge, the American Growth Project and other initiatives.
Shannon’s background is in K-12 private school education and education nonprofit organizations, working in teaching, program management and operations, and development capacities. She has an MBA from UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, where she was vice president of finance for Carolina Women in Business, working to raise sponsorship support and other financial resources for the program. She also has a master’s degree in independent school leadership and finance from Vanderbilt University and a bachelor’s from Yale University, where she double-majored in economics and chemical engineering.
Breagin Riley studies how social justice issues affect consumer markets and consumer behavior. Areas of research include consumer behavior, social contracts and market evolution.
Dr. Riley teaches course in consumer behavior, branding, principles of marketing and statistics.
She consults on scaling up, branding strategy, marketing strategy, strategic partnership cultivation, customer and consumer behavior.
Dr. Breagin joined UNC Kenan-Flagler from Syracuse University.
She received her PhD and MS in marketing from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and her BS in marketing from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Tara Watson is the director of the Center for Economic Security and Opportunity (formerly the Center on Children and Families) at the Brookings Institution. She is also professor of economics at Williams College, where she has been on the faculty since 2004; a research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a co-editor of the Journal of Human Resources. Watson was deputy assistant secretary of microeconomic analysis at the U.S. Treasury from 2015 to 2016. She has also been a visiting researcher at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy Research at the University of Michigan, and a research associate with Princeton University’s Center for Research on Child Wellbeing. She earned a B.A. from Wesleyan University in 1996 and a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University in 2003.
Watson’s work focuses on U.S. social policy, including immigration and the safety net. Watson’s book with journalist Kalee Thompson, “The Border Within: The Economics of Immigration in an Age of Fear,” was published by University of Chicago Press in 2021.
Watson lives in the D.C. area with her family and poorly behaved dog.
Daniela De la Parra researches the determinants of corporate information, with an emphasis on qualitative properties of disclosures, and their implications for capital markets. She is particularly interested in applications of machine learning to accounting research.
Dr. De la Parra teaches financial accounting.
Before joining academia, Dr. De la Parra was a professional chess player for 12 years. Among her accomplishments, she holds the FIDE title of Woman International Master in chess, and she was the Absolute Female Chess Campion of Mexico in 2011.
She earned a full chess scholarship to attend the University of Texas at Brownsville.
Dr. De la Parra received her PhD from Rice University, and her BA with a double major in accounting and finance from the University of Texas at Brownsville, graduating summa cum laude.
As a highly accomplished leader in the public and private sectors, Thomas Stith has an extraordinary record of improving operations, increasing productivity, and scaling revenue. He is recognized as a thought leader on economic development, small business, investment, development opportunities and public policy.
Thomas’s career spans numerous industries, including state and local government, higher education, technology, nonprofits, health care, transportation and energy/utilities. His commitment to driving measurable organizational and community change is at the core of his work.
Earlier in his career, Thomas served as a Special Assistant to the Governor of North Carolina. He also served three terms as a Councilman with the City of Durham. Later, he returned to the Governor’s Office as Governor McCrory’s Chief of Staff, where among other responsibilities, he led the establishment of the $60M Venture Capital Multiplier Fund to support entrepreneurship and innovation in the state.
Thomas’s devotion to improving his community is evidenced through his work with organizations such as the U.S. Small Business Administration, where he served as the District Director for North Carolina and the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At the SBA, he facilitated $16B in direct assistance to North Carolina small businesses, contributing to the stability and growth of the state during the COVID 19 pandemic. Through his work with the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise, Thomas bolstered the entrepreneurial and small business ecosystem of North Carolina and promoted private enterprise as a critical component of capitalism.
Thomas’s most recent tenure was as President of the North Carolina Community College System, the nation’s third largest, comprised of 58 individual colleges across North Carolina. During his tenure, he secured a historic $1.4B legislative investment, turned around a declining enrollment, and redesigned recruiting efforts that resulted in an unprecedented number of diversity hires within the senior team leadership.
Thomas earned a Master of Business Administration and a Bachelor of Business Administration from North Carolina Central University. He is also certified in nonprofit management from Duke University and holds a Directorship Certification from the National Association of Corporate Directors. Thomas and his wife Yolanda have three adult children and live in the Triangle area of North Carolina. Stith was a 2023 Distinguished Fellow and participated in the Kenan Institute Grand Challenge Workforce Disrupted: Seeking the Labor Market’s Next Equilibrium.
I completed my undergraduate degree in Special Education and History at Elon University in 2018. I then received a Fulbright grant to study in the UK; through my Fulbright, I earned my MSc Autism from the University of Strathclyde. I went on to start my PhD in Psychology at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Prof Claire Hughes and Prof Jenny Gibson. My PhD focused on nature’s role in supporting wellbeing in several understudied contexts: in young children during the Covid-19 pandemic and in autistic people across the life course.
Mark McNeilly teaches in the areas of marketing and organizational behavior in the full-time MBA and online MBA@UNC programs. He serves as a faculty advisor for the STAR program and executive coach in the Leadership program
Professor McNeilly served as a global marketing executive and has several years of experience with both IBM and Lenovo in the IT industry. His business background includes branding, strategy, marketing, market intelligence, management, manufacturing and personnel.
He is the author of a popular strategy book based on Sun Tzu’s “Art of War” titled “Sun Tzu and the Art of Business: Six Strategic Principles for Managers” as well as “George Washington and the Art of Business: Leadership Principles of America’s First Commander-in-Chief,” both from Oxford University Press.
Professor McNeilly has presented his views on strategy and marketing to corporations, business people in the U.S., Europe and Asia as well as the U.S. Air Force Command and Staff College. He has discussed his ideas on strategy on the BBC, C-SPAN, CNBC’s “Power Lunch” and other TV and radio programs. He appeared on a History Channel Special on Sun Tzu’s “Art of War.” He has been an expert blogger for Fast Company.
Professor McNeilly received his MBA with honors from the University of Minnesota and his BS in finance from the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse.
Tim Kundro’s research focuses on the complexities of morality and ethics at work. In particular, he investigates how employees respond to and manage (im)moral situations in the workplace.
He teaches courses in ethics and organizational behavior.
His research has been published in the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. It has been featured in Harvard Business Review, NPR and Fast Company.
Dr. Kundro has partnered with public, private, and federal organizations to conduct his research. He has also served as an expert witness.
He previously served on the faculty of the University of Notre Dame.
He received his PhD in management from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and he graduated summa cum laude from Penn State University with a BS in psychology.
Yuqian Xu researches operations in financial services and digital platforms. Her focus of methodology includes applied probability, stochastic models, econometrics and machine learning.
Her teaching interests are operations management, risk analysis and data analytics.
In her research work, she has collaborated with companies such as Watsi, Alibaba, JD.com, Bank of China and ICBC.
Dr. Xu has given talks at academic, industry, and government conferences and organizations, such as the Federal Reserve Bank and China Banking Regulatory Committee.
She is an editorial member of Probability in Engineering and Informational Sciences, and associate editor of Service Science.
She received her PhD with honors in operations management from the NYU Stern School of Business, where she received with the Herman E. Krooss Dissertation Award. She received her BS in mathematics from Kuang Yaming Honors School of Intensive Instruction in Science and Arts at Nanjing University.