Core Team

Eleanor T. Loiacono, Ph.D., Principal Investigator, AIS Associate Vice President of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Professor, Business Analytics, Raymond A. Mason School of Business, College of William & Mary

Dr. Loiacono’s expertise centers on the intersection of technology and the user. Over the past 20 years, she has focused on how people feel about the technology they use and how technologies, such as mobile apps and social media, can improve users’ experiences. She is particularly interested in how those with differing abilities interact with technologies. Her research has appeared in journals, such as the Journal of the Association of Information Systems, Management Information Systems Quarterly Executive, Communications of the Association of Information Systems, and International Journal of Electronic Commerce.

Website: www.eleanorloiacono.com

Raymond A. Mason School of Business, College of Williams & Mary
3026 Miller Hall | 101 Ukrop Way | Williamsburg, VA 23186 | USA
Office: (757) 221-2054 | Email: eloiacono@wm.edu


Lakshmi S. Iyer, Ph.D., (she/her) Co-Principal Investigator
L.M. Baker Jr. Partners in Excellence Professor, (Interim) Associate Dean of Graduate Programs & Research, Walker College of Business, Appalachian State University

Dr. Iyer’s research interests are in the area of emerging technologies & their impact on organizations and users, and social inclusion in computing. Her research work has been published in the Journal of the AIS, Communications of the AIS, European Journal of Information Systems, Communications of the ACM, Decision Support Systems, Information Systems Frontier, Information Technology & People, Journal of Computer information Systems, Science of the Total Environment and others. She is Board Chair for the Association of Information System’s (AIS) Special Interest Group Decision Support and Analytics (SIGDSA). She received the Hugh J. Watson Award that honors and recognizes an individual whose significant achievements and high-quality contributions to the data and analytics academic community. She is also serving as the Vice-President of Special Interest Groups and Colleges for the Association of Information Systems (AIS). She has co-guest edited special issues for Communications of the ACM and Information Systems Frontier.

Dr. Iyer has been involved in community engaged outreach and scholarship to increase diverse students’ awareness about STEM education and career paths. She started a new initiative in 2018, “Innovate for Good” at Appalachian State University and was founder/director of the “IT is for Girls” program at UNC Greensboro. She has received funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), American Association of University Women (AAUW), National Center for Women in IT, Alex Lee Corporation, Lincoln Financial, and from other foundations to offer STEM events for young women. Related initiatives also include the Triad Tech Savvy event sponsored by AAUW which expanded to the STEM3 program (in 2017) to include the medical/healthcare and music fields. The “IT is for Girls” and “Triad Tech Savvy” programs have served over 1200 girls in middle and high-school in the Triad area and beyond since the women in IT inception in 2009.

She is a member of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) and received the Dr. Shirley Hall Award from AAUW Greensboro Branch in April 2011 for exemplary contribution to enrich STEM education for women. She served as the STEM coordination for AAUW Greensboro and also served as a co-chair of the Association of Information Systems’ (AIS) task force on Women in IS to enhance the outreach efforts of AIS to women in Information Systems (IS) based on systematic assessment of the current status of women in IS globally, including students (both current and potential) and professionals in academia, corporate, and non-profit organizations with the intent to creating a nurturing, supporting environment conducive to enhancing the growth and success of women in the IS field. She was awarded the National Center for Women in IT’s 2015 Educator Award. In 2017, AAUW Greensboro Branch established the “Iyer Award” to recognize a member whose work has enabled the Branch to make a lasting difference in its mission of service on behalf of women and girls.

Website: https://sites.google.com/a/appstate.edu/iyerls/

Walker College of Business | Appalachian State University
3140 Kenneth E. Peacock Hall | 416 Howard Street | Boone, NC 28608 USA | Office: (828) 262-6823 |Email: iyerLs@appstate.edu


Elizabeth Long Lingo, Ph.D., (she/her) Co-Principal Investigator
Associate Professor, WPI Business School, Worcester Polytechnic Institute

How do leaders work across disciplines, organizations, cultures, and networks to co-create and implement novel solutions, sustainable human-centered change, and entrepreneurial ventures?  Over the past twenty years, this question has motivated Dr. Long Lingo’s research, innovative project-based teaching, and efforts to advance organizational transformation and policy change to forge more equitable and creatively vibrant organizations, cities, and fields of enterprise. 

As an ethnographer of work and organizations, Dr. Long Lingo is especially interested in the situated and lived experience of everyday work, and inductively analyzes qualitative data to build new theory and unexpected insights. Her scholarship is primarily process-focused, and offers three major contributions to the field: 1) launching a stream of research on creative brokering that informs how leaders advance entrepreneurial opportunities and novel outcomes within networks; 2) illuminating the micro-processes that enable low-power and under-represented actors to advance change and innovation; and 3) exploring how digital technology both constrains and enhances creative work.

Dr. Long Lingo’s research has been published in top-tier journals including Administrative Science Quarterly (ASQ), Journal of Management Studies, Organization Studies, Harvard Business Review, Poetics, Work and Occupations, and the Chronicle of Higher Education and featured in the New York Times, The Guardian (UK), Forbes, Fortune, and BBC Global News. She was recognized in the ASQ Editor’s Choice Collections as authoring one of the top papers focused on networks and knowledge.

Dr. Long Lingo is Co-PI on two National Science Foundation ADVANCE grants, including the Adaptation grant, “Advancing toward “FULL” Representation of Women in STEM at WPI” and this Partnership grant, “ImPACT: Increasing the Participation and Advancement of Women in Information Technology.  As a co-PI on WPI’s ADVANCE Adaptation grant from the National Science Foundation (2018-2021), Dr. Long Lingo is investigating structural and systemic biases and barriers within Associate-to-Full promotion processes, with a particular interest in the transformative role of department heads. This work has great potential to lessen inequity among the senior ranks of faculty, better align rewards with institutional missions and strengths, and develop a national model for other STEM and project-based academic institutions.

Dr. Long Lingo earned her Ph.D. in the joint program in Organizational Behavior and Sociology at Harvard Business School and Harvard University and her Bachelor of Business Administration, Finance, from University of Massachusetts, Amherst.  

Website: www.elizabethlonglingo.com/#elizabeth-long-lingo

WPI Business School | Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Washburn Shops 213 |50 Prescott St. | Worcester, MA 01609
USA | Office: (508) 831-5000 x6344|Email: ellingo@wpi.edu


Michelle Carter, Ph.D., Consultant
Associate Professor, Management, Information Systems, and Entrepreneurship, Carson College of Business, Washington State University

Dr. Michelle Carter is an associate professor in the Carson College of Business at Washington State University, Pullman, WA. She also holds the courtesy appointment of affiliate associate professor in the Information School at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA. Dr. Carter earned her Ph.D. in Management (Information Systems) from Clemson University. She has taught MIS courses, in traditional and online environments, at undergraduate, masters, and doctoral levels.

Dr. Carter’s research focuses on information technologies’ involvement in identity and social change, factors that shape IT usage behaviors, and information systems management. Her work has been accepted for publication in MIS Quarterly, ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems, European Journal of Information Systems, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Journal of Information Technology, Information & Management, Communications of the Association for Information Systems, and MIS Quarterly Executive.

Dr. Carter previously served as a senior editor for Information Technology & People and currently serves as an associate editor for the Journal of the Association for Information Systems. She is Chair of the Association for Information Systems (AIS) Committee on Diversity and Inclusion and a past-president of the AIS Special Interest Group on Social Inclusion. In 2016, she was recognized for her research and service contributions to the information systems field, as a recipient of the AIS Early Career Award.

Dept. of Management, Information Systems and Entrepreneurship
Carson College of Business |Washington State University | Pullman, WA 99164 | Office: (404) 428-6463 | Email:  michelle.carter@wsu.edu


Adriane B. Randolph, Ph.D., Consultant
Incoming Interim Associate Dean for Community and Faculty Affairs (July 2023), Executive Director of the BrainLab, Professor of Information Systems, Department of Information Systems and Security, Michael J. Coles College of Business, Kennesaw State University

Dr. Adriane B. Randolph is a tenured, Full Professor of Information Systems at Kennesaw State University in the Michael J. Coles College of Business.  She is also the Founder and Executive Director of the BrainLab which is an innovative, research-based enterprise that combines cognitive neuroscience tools with cutting-edge applications in information technology.  The BrainLab has garnered international credibility through her efforts in establishing one of the first neurophysiologically-based research labs within a business college in the world and helping champion what is now the recognized sub-field of neuro-information systems. 

For over two decades, Dr. Randolph has designed brain-computer interface systems which allow hands-free control of technology for people living locked into their bodies and reflect varying cognitive states. Her research spans human-computer interaction, neuro-information systems, and neuro-education.  She has secured over $1.5 million in federal and private funding, been a featured speaker in over seventy engagements including three TEDx events, and been recognized for her passionate work with under-represented doctoral students as an inductee into The PhD Project Hall of Fame. 

Dr. Randolph is a Distinguished Member Cum Laude of the Association for Information Systems (AIS) for which she has co-organized numerous Mid-Career Faculty Workshops, served as faculty mentor for the Junior Faculty and Doctoral Consortia, served as inaugural treasurer for the Special Interest Group for Social Inclusion (SIG-SI), and Co-Chaired the Health Information Technology Symposium (HITS) for the Special Interest Group for Health (SIG-Health).

Dr. Randolph earned a Ph.D. in Computer Information Systems from Georgia State University and a B.S. in Systems Engineering with Distinction from the University of Virginia. 

website: www.adrianerandolph.com

Michael J. Coles College of Business, Kennesaw State University
1200 Chastain Rd NW | Room 206B, MD 0006 | Kennesaw, GA 30144| USA Office: (470) 578-6083 | Email: arandol3@kennesaw.edu


Shimi Zhou, Ph.D. Candidate

Shimi Zhou is currently pursuing a Ph.D. degree in Information Technology at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Her research interests are smart cities for people with disabilities, social inclusion in IT, and women leadership on social media. Her dissertation focuses on the authorship and influence of women IS scholars. She uses social network analysis to evaluate the network characteristics of IS academics. The research analyzes what factors impact IS scholars’ authorship networks and how these factors influence women IS scholarship.

Worcester Polytechnic Institute | WPI Business School |Worcester, MA 01609 Email: szhou7@wpi.edu LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shimi-zhou/


Cindy Carlson, M.S., Project Coordinator

Cindy Carlson worked for many years in East Asian Studies at Cornell and Duke where she managed US Department of Education and private foundation grants and ran outreach programs across a range of domains for constituents. She double majored in Economics and International Relations at Brown University, where she also studied Japanese. Later she did graduate study, researched, and worked in Japan for many years. She has a master’s of science in Communication from Cornell where her research focused on family communication and adolescent outcomes. For the past several years, she has volunteered with a focus on parenting education, mental health and youth decision-making. She is certified as a mediator by the Virginia Supreme Court for General District Court and Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court.

Raymond A. Mason School of Business, College of Williams & Mary
Miller Hall | 101 Ukrop Way | Williamsburg, VA 23186 | USA
Email: clcarlson@wm.edu