New Faculty Join Trulaske in Accountancy, Management

This fall, the Trulaske College of Business welcomed four new faculty – one in the School of Accountancy and three in the Management Department.

Mr. George R. Brand joins the college as an assistant teaching professor in the Management Department. He holds a BA from St. Olaf College, a JD from the University of Missouri School of Law and an MBA from our Crosby MBA program. He has broad experiences both teaching and practicing law and is eager to connect with students in and outside the classroom.

Dr. Christie McCullough joins the college as an assistant teaching professor in the Management Department. Her professional experience includes management consulting and work as a manager in the telecommunications and real estate industries. Her current consulting work focuses on increasing employee engagement and satisfaction. Dr. McCullough teaches undergraduate courses in organizational behavior, human resource management and principles of management. She has also taught organizational behavior courses for the Crosby MBA and execMBA programs. She holds a BS from Missouri State University, an MBA from our Crosby MBA program and a PhD from Mizzou.

Dr. Zhenhao (Jeffery) Piao joins the college as an assistant professor in the School of Accountancy. He was born in Heilongjiang, China’s northernmost province, and came to the United States to pursue his college education. Dr. Piao obtained his BS in accounting with university honors and master of accounting science degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. During his college years, he discovered his interest in academic research and teaching and decided to pursue his PhD in accounting at the University of Florida’s Fisher School of Accounting. He completed his doctoral degree in 2022. Dr. Piao’s research mainly focuses on information dissemination mechanisms in the capital markets, including corporate disclosure and private interactions among market participants.

Jackie Rasmussen, who has led our International Trade Center for over three years as senior program manager, joins the Management Department as an assistant teaching professor while continuing to direct the ITC. Jackie will bring her sophisticated understanding of global business to courses like International Management, Operations Management and Managing Global Trade. Before joining the college in 2019, Jackie was a business development and international trade specialist with MU Extension for nearly 27 years. She is the principal investigator in a successful application for our first U.S. Department of Education BIE grant, which supports the launch of a global business certificate and the expansion of our study abroad program at the Trulaske College of Business.