USC Faculty

Gita Govahi, PhD
Assistant Dean of Instruction & Research
Director of Experiential Learning Center at the USC Marshall School of Business

During Dr. Govahi’s tenure, she has worked on major Marshall Initiatives and inaugurated a number of training programs for the School’s Graduate, Undergraduate and Executive Education Programs.

As the Director of the Experiential Learning Center, she leads a core group of professional trainers who design and conduct experiential exercises for the Marshall School’s constituencies. Gita also oversees the Marshall Libraries and has directed the Marshall School’s Instructional Services Center for a number of years. In this capacity, she facilitated implementation of the state-of-the-art technologies in the Business School classrooms to support the pedagogical needs of the faculty in their teaching— as well as fostering greater student involvement in the learning process.

Dr. Govahi has special interest in cross-cultural training, and has worked as a consultant in this area. Over the past 20 years, Gita has published papers and articles on the topics of Experiential Learning, Virtual Teams, and various experiential activities that are still in use at the ELC.

Dr. Govahi received her Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the Marshall School of Business and her Master of Science degree in Applied Behavioral Science also from USC. Dr. Govahi received her PhD in Information Science from Claremont Graduate University in 2011. Her current area of interest is Group Creativity and Virtual Teams.

Geoffrey Joyce, PhD
Director, Health Policy, USC Schaeffer Center
Chair, Department of Pharmaceutical and Health Economics, USC School of Pharmacy
Associate Professor, USC School of Pharmacy

Geoffrey Joyce, PhD is the author of over 90 peer-reviewed articles, reports and book chapters, and his research has been published in leading medical, economic, health policy and statistics journals. Dr. Joyce’s research focuses on the costs of medical care and the role of insurance. He published a series of studies in JAMA examining the impact of alternative pharmacy benefit designs on prescription drug utilization and spending.

Other studies by Dr. Joyce have examined the lifetime costs of chronic disease, smoking cessation, the cost-effectiveness of highly active antiretroviral therapy or HIV-infected patients, and differences in medical care utilization and costs under alternative financing arrangements and treatment settings. He recently received an CMS Innovation grant that integrates clinical pharmacy into primary care. His current research is examining the impacts of Medicare Part D, prior authorization policies, and pricing in health care markets.

Dr. Joyce’s work has been featured in several major print, television and radio news media outlets.

David Logan, PhD
Lecturer, Management, and Organization

David Logan, PhD is a Senior Lecturer at USC Marshall  School of Business, and  New York Times bestselling author. He is co-founder and president of CultureSync, a management consulting firm focused on the intersection of strategy and culture.

CultureSync has consulted dozens of Fortune 500 companies, major nonprofits, and governments around the world. He has been on the USC faculty since 1996 and has a PhD in Organizational Communication from the Annenberg School at USC.

Dr. Logan authored or co-authored six books, including the bestseller Tribal Leadership and The Three Laws of Performance.

Kyle Mayer, PhD, MS
Professor of Management and Organization

Kyle Mayer, PhD, MS studies how firms govern relationships with other firms, with particular attention to the contract and its role in establishing a framework for the relationship. His research has been published in Organizational Science, Academy of Management Journal, Management Science, and Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization. He served on the editorial boards of Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Academy of Management Review, and Strategic Management Journal.

He received a Golden Apple Award in 2003, Marshall’s Educator of the Year Award in 2006, and a Mellon Mentoring Award from USC in 2006.

Greg Patton is an expert in communication, interpersonal and leadership effectiveness. He has received numerous teaching awards, been ranked as one of the top teaching faculty at USC and helped USC Marshall achieve numerous #1 worldwide rankings for Communication and Leadership skill development. Professor Patton has extensive international experience, has trained, coached and mentored thousands of leaders worldwide, and created scores of successful leadership programs. He has advised on several hundred consulting engagements throughout the Pacific Rim, serves as a keynote speaker and has held more than twenty leadership positions in national and international organizations.

Dr. Rebecca Heino is a Professor of Clinical Management and Organization. She teaches courses in cross-cultural intelligence and diversity, leadership and organizational behavior (including mindfulness, EQ, resilience, and teaming), and critical conversations for undergraduates, graduate students, and executives. Currently she leads the Marshall Leadership Fellows Program for MBA students. Previously, she was on faculty at Georgetown and Columbia Universities. Her extensive global work in executive education includes clients such as KPMG (Brazil, Mexico), International Finance Corporation, Rio Tinto (Australia), Jasoor (Qatar), and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.

Prof. Peter Kim is a Professor of Management and Organization. He studies the dynamics of interpersonal perceptions and their implications for negotiations, work groups, and dispute resolution. His research has been published in numerous scholarly journals, received ten national/international awards, and has been featured by the New York Times, Washington Post, and National Public Radio. He serves as an Associate Editor for the Academy of Management Review and the Journal of Trust Research, on the editorial boards of Organization Science and Negotiation and Conflict Management Research, and as Chair of the Academy of Management’s Conflict Management Division. He received a teaching award from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

Ken Perlman is a consultant, facilitator and presenter with 25 years’ experience consulting to executives and teams at Fortune 500 companies. Ken has built his expertise in leadership, change, program management, culture, organization design, communication, innovation, business process improvement and technology adoption. His clients include Levi Strauss & Co., Warner Bros., Kaiser Permanente, NetApp, Coty, Nordstrom, Southern California Edison, and Nestlé. Bringing in his experience implementing large IT systems like SAP, and with process improvement methodologies like Lean Six Sigma, Ken recognizes that leadership is the greatest single differentiator between high-performing organizations and those that that struggle. Ken earned his M.B.A. from USC and his B.A. from Claremont McKenna College, where he served as research assistant at the Kravis Leadership Institute.

Dr. Nandini Rajagopalan is the Joseph A. DeBell Chair in Business Administration and Professor of Management and Organization. Her research examines platform-based markets, diversification and strategic alliances, CEO succession, and corporate governance. She has published in the Academy of Management Review, the Academy of Management Journal, the Strategic Management Journal, the Journal of International Business Studies, the Journal of Management Studies, the Journal of Management, and Business Horizons among others. She is a Distinguished Faculty Fellow at USC’s Center for Excellence in Teaching, and recipient of USC’s Provost’s Mentoring Award. She is past Associate Editor of the Academy of Management Journal.