Lazaridis School of Business and Economics welcomes nine new faculty members

July 28, 2026

Nine full-time faculty joined the Lazaridis School of Business and Economics at Wilfrid Laurier University on July 1, 2026.

Get to know our newest tenure-track professors who will add valuable experience and expertise to our thriving academic community.

Ali Ahmadi (Assistant Professor, Finance)

Academic and Career Background

Ali Ahmadi pursued his PhD at the Schulich School of Business, York University. His sole-authored research won the 2025 Business for a Better World Dissertation Award from the Colorado State University and Resposible Research in Business and Management (RRBM), the 2025 Best Paper Award at the Canadian Sustainable Finance Network Conference, and was selected as Best Paper Award semifinalist at the 2025 Financial Management Association Conference.

Research Interests

Ahmadi’s research interest lies at the intersection of corporate finance and sustainability, spanning corporate governance and law, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and climate finance, labour economics, and innovation. He explores the complex and often underexplored interactions between firms and their stakeholders—employees, shareholders, society, environment, and business partners—generating timely and actionable insights for practitioners and policymakers.

Tina Dacin (Professor, Strategic Management; Lazaridis Research Chair in Strategy and Entrepreneurship)

Professor Tina Dacin joined the Lazaridis School in April 2026 as a tenured professor and Lazaridis Research Chair in Strategy and Entrepreneurship after more than two decades at Queen’s University’s Smith School of business. At Queen’s she held the Stephen J.R. Smith Chair of Strategy and Organizational Behaviour and led the Centre for Social Impact among other roles.

Academic and Career Background

Dacin received her doctorate from the University of Toronto and has been recognized with awards including the Academy of Management Perspectives Decade Award, the Responsible Research in Management Award, and since 2021 has been included annually in Stanford’s list of the top two per cent most cited scholars worldwide. She is a Fellow in the Centre for Social Innovation at the University of Cambridge and she advises and speaks to major corporations in the airline, biotech, defense, energy, financial services, healthcare, and telecom sectors.

Research Interests

Her research program is currently anchored in three domains: custodianship and traditions, community and social entrepreneurship, and place-based organizing. Dacin's work investigates how actors—whether entrepreneurs, professionals, or community members—mobilize traditions and local knowledge to drive strategic change and foster inclusive futures. She’s an internationally recognized scholar whose research spans strategy, social innovation, entrepreneurship, and organizational change, with work published in many of the world’s leading management journals.

Hesam Ghasemi (Assistant Professor, Marketing)

Academic and Career Background

Hesam Ghasemi earned his PhD in Marketing from ESSEC Business School in France. His research has been published in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, an FT50 journal, and Nature Human Behaviour.

Research Interests

Dr. Ghasemi’s research lies at the intersection of human–AI interaction, and language. He examines how the design and communication styles of conversational agents (e.g., service chatbots, voicebots, and AI companions) shape consumers’ perceptions, engagement, and decision-making. His research also explores topics related to the creator economy and online reviews.

Xiaoli Hu (Assistant Professor, Accounting)

Academic and Career Background

Xiaoli Hu earned her PhD in Accounting from the National University of Singapore and previously served as an Assistant Professor at City University of Hong Kong. Her research has been published in journals including Contemporary Accounting Research, Review of Accounting Studies, and the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis.

Research Interests

Hu's research lies at the intersection of accounting, taxation, corporate finance, and ESG. She studies how public policies and institutional environments shape corporate decision-making, with particular interests in corporate disclosure, financing, and labour-related issues.

McKay Jones (Assistant Professor, Accounting)

Academic and Career Background

McKay Jones recently completed his PhD in Accounting at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and joined Wilfrid Laurier University as an Assistant Professor of Accounting.

Research Interests

Jones' research examines how management control systems, compensation design, and informal controls shape employee behavior. He is particularly interested in understanding how organizations can design workplace policies that improve recruitment, motivation, honesty, and organizational performance.

Sina Seyfi (Assistant Professor, Finance)

Academic and Career Background

Sina Seyfi joined the Lazaridis School as an Assistant Professor of Finance after completing his PhD in Finance at Aalto University in Finland.

Research Interests

Seyfi’s research focuses on empirical asset pricing, machine learning, and high-dimensional return predictability. His work also explores the use of artificial intelligence and large language models in economic research and scientific discovery.

Noah Spencer (Assistant Professor, Economics)

Academic and Career Background

Noah will complete his PhD in Economics at the University of Toronto in 2026. He has published research in the Journal of Health Economics and Economics of Education Review. His research on on-reserve education was a finalist for the Bank of Canada Graduate Student Paper Award.

Research Interests

Spencer is an applied microeconomist whose research examines how neighbourhoods, public policies, and institutions shape education and health outcomes. His work focuses on the economics of education and health economics.

Xiaoying Wang (Assistant Professor, Strategic Management)

Academic and Career Background

Xiaoying Wang earned her PhD in Management (Strategy & Global Management) from the Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, and also holds a PhD in Economics from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Research Interests

Her primary research lies at the intersection of corporate strategy, corporate governance, and strategic leadership, examining how institutional investors, CEOs, and boards shape major strategic decisions such as mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, and energy transition strategies. She also studies entrepreneurial career trajectories and the internationalization strategies of Chinese multinational enterprises.

Qiyao Zhou (Assistant Professor, Economics)

Academic and Career Background

Qiyao Zhou was an Assistant Professor in Economics at Oklahoma State University prior to joining the Lazaridis School. He earned his PhD in Economics from the University of Maryland. His papers have earned the Young Economists' Essay Awards (finalist) from European Association for Research in Industrial Economics.

Research Interests

Zhou’s research mainly lies in real estate and urban economics, and industrial organization. He studies how government regulations shape markets—what they fix, what they distort, and how to design them for efficiency and equity.