What do you like most about your job?

I really enjoy talking about research and ideas with students and colleagues during class and research seminars. The different perspectives they share are enlightening and send me down paths that I would never have discovered on my own. There is also so much amazing work that is being done. The process of learning about it is really one of the best parts of my job.

Which research from the past year are you most proud of?

This is really a toss-up. On the one hand, I recently published a paper that identifies when and how low-power individuals are more creative than high-power individuals. This is an important result because it really gets to the duality found in power and how either having power or being powerless can affect your work. At least in the sense of how creative you are in your work. On the other hand, I published a paper this year with Torsten Jochem (ABS Finance Section) that shows how even being remotely associated with a Nobel Prize winner can boost your research citations. This paper has the strongest personal impact because I learned so much during its development and I feel really tied to it.

What do colleagues probably not know about you?

I really like LEGO because it has many superficial similarities to research. There’s a mental challenge, a sense of ownership and accomplishment, strange orange tools that are used to remove misplaced bricks. I really enjoy the sense of progress and being able to finish a project in just a month or 2. But it often takes much longer to publish my papers.