Fall Brings Four New Faculty Members

Editors’ Note: This feature appears as it was published in the autumn 2021 edition of UT Dallas Magazine. Titles or faculty members listed may have changed since that time.

Fall Brings Four New Faculty Members

Samir Mamadehussene
Samir Mamadehussene

Samir Mamadehussene, a tenure-track assistant professor of marketing, joined the Naveen Jindal School of Management this fall after teaching at his alma mater, Catolica-Lisbon School of Business and Economics.

He earned an undergraduate degree in business administration and a master’s degree in economics there before subsequently earning another master’s degree and a PhD in economics from Northwestern University.

While he was at Northwestern, his paper, “Do Low Price Guarantees Hurt Consumers? Theory and Evidence,” won a Young Economists’ Essay Award and the Paul Geroski Prize for the most significant policy contribution at the annual conference of the European Association for Research in Industrial Economics.

His research interest lies in quantitative marketing. “I have always been interested in understanding human behavior,” he says, and while studying for a master’s in economics, “I developed a special interest in understanding firm behavior. In my research, I look to understand various firm policies and analyze their impact on consumers.

“For example, in my PhD thesis I analyzed price-matching guarantees. I found that, paradoxically, in the tire market, prices would be between 1% and 8% lower if firms did not offer such policies.”

Mamadehussene’s thesis, “Price-Matching Guarantees as a Direct Signal of Low Prices,” was published in April 2019 in the Journal of Marketing Research (Vol. 56, Issue 2).

This fall, he is teaching Principles of Marketing (MKT 3300).

“UT Dallas has an outstanding student population, who are keen to learn and share ideas,” Mamadehussene says. “I am looking forward to interacting with them.”

Hiro Nishi
Hiro Nishi

Hiro Nishi has joined the Jindal School as an associate professor of instruction in the Finance and Managerial Economics Area and director of the BS in Finance program.

Nishi succeeds S. Drew Peabody, who has left UT Dallas.

“My primary goal at UTD is to be an excellent mentor for our students,” Nishi says.

He has many potential customers to reach in that role. The program welcomed 281 new students this semester and has a total enrollment of 1,005 degree-seekers.

Nishi came to UT Dallas from Fort Hays (Kansas) State University, where he taught after earning his doctorate from the University of North Texas in 2016. He received the 2020-2021 Van R. Hoisington Faculty Member of Distinction Award from Fort Hays State.

His research interest lies in financial derivatives, an outgrowth of roles he filled for a decade at a Kansas electricity utility, Evergy Inc., before he transitioned into academia. Most recently he was manager of quantitative analytics, where his duties included computing the risk metrics of energy derivative transactions and managing trading strategies on a daily basis.

This fall, Nishi is teaching Financial Management (FIN 6301), a graduate-level course that teaches the basic concepts of corporate capital budgeting and cost-of-capital analysis.

“I am excited about teaching at UTD,” Nishi says. “There are exceptional faculty and staff. I also think that we have a very diverse student body. All of these are what make the University great.”

Charles Haseman
Charles Haseman

Charles Haseman, a new professor of practice in the Marketing Area, is also the director of the recently launched Center for Retail Innovation and Strategy Excellence (see New Center of Excellence Embraces Disruption and Digital Transformation in Retail).

The center — informally known as RISE — intends to take a leading role in the Dallas-Fort Worth area retail industry by providing “an effective retail corporate response to disruptive technologies and digital transformation through service, research and education.”

Haseman’s own goal is to gain national recognition for RISE.

Haseman arrived at the Jindal School with more than 40 years’ experience in retail and consumer product goods (CPG) organizations. He founded and was managing director of Haseman Associates, a consultancy that addresses CPG and retail operations and information technology needs.

Haseman has held executive positions at NEC Corporation of America, a communications and IT company; Proterra USA, an advertising agency; and Syntel Inc., a forerunner of Atos/Syntel, an IT and business-process services company.

He earned a master’s degree in engineering management from Southern Methodist University and completed postgraduate work in strategy and IT transformation at the London Business School.

Haseman is teaching Principles of Marketing (MKT 3300), Introduction to Professional Selling (MKT 3330) and E-Retailing (MKT 4336), all undergraduate marketing courses; and Systems Negotiation and Dispute Resolution (SYSM 6313), a course in the MS in Systems Engineering and Management program.

Haseman says he is excited by the “opportunity to ‘pay it forward’ to the community of UTD.”

Nick Hassan
Nick Hassan

Nozar Hassanzadeh, better known as Nick Hassan, is a long-time adjunct faculty member in the Executive Education Area who recently became an associate professor of practice.

This fall he is teaching Managing Strategy Execution, Operations Management and Supply Chain Management in the Executive MBA and Global Leadership MBA programs.

Hassan was recognized in 2015 by the EMBA students with a Teaching Excellence Award.

Away from UT Dallas, Hassan’s professional experience includes work at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Fermilab, the Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory and Texas Instruments, where he was director of innovation and technology partnerships in the company’s Chief Technology Organization. He has held leadership positions in managing product lines and business units, product development, design, operations and strategic program management.

Hassan earned his Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from UT Austin and his master’s degree in the same discipline from SMU. He has authored numerous papers and holds patents on eight inventions in advanced semiconductor packaging design.

“UTD is a fast-growing and forward-looking institution with strong focus on academic and professional excellence,” Hassan says. “I am delighted to be a part of this team.”