Kogod School of Business

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The Most Consequential AI transformation in Business Education

Empowering Leaders Through Responsible, Applied AI

Kogod School of Business Institute for Applied Artificial Intelligence Convenes Research and Practice

Interdisciplinary and on
the Cutting Edge of
Research and Application

Artificial Intelligence is transforming industries, shaping careers, and reshaping society. At the Institute for Applied Artificial Intelligence (IAAI) at American University's Kogod School of Business, we're leading this transformation through interdisciplinary collaboration, cutting-edge research, and applied learning experiences.

About the Institute

Established in 2025, the IAAI positions the Kogod School of Business and American University at the forefront of AI education and research. Our institute fosters innovative and responsible applications of artificial intelligence, empowering our community of students, faculty, and industry partners with the tools and knowledge necessary to thrive in a rapidly evolving technological landscape.

We believe that understanding AI isn't enough—students and faculty must engage actively with AI tools and apply these innovations to solve real-world challenges. Through courses, workshops, speaker series, research collaborations, and strategic industry partnerships, the IAAI is committed to providing transformative, practical, and ethical AI experiences.

Our Mission

To position the Kogod School of Business and American University as a global leader in AI education and research by integrating AI into curricula, pioneering ethical guidelines, fostering industry collaborations, and promoting high-impact research and teaching innovations.

Meet Our Leadership


gwanhoo Lee

Gwanhoo Lee

Director
Professor
Information Technology and Analytics
Kogod School of Business


Angela Virtu

Angela Virtu

Associate Director
Professorial Lecturer
Information Technology and Analytics
Kogod School of Business

 

Beu Xiao Upscaled

Bei Xiao

Associate Director
Provost Associate Professor
Computer Science
College of Arts & Sciences 

Key Areas of Impact

At the Institute
for Applied Artificial Intelligence, AI education crosses traditional academic boundaries.

Interdisciplinary
and Applied AI Education

Faculty from Kogod, the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Public Affairs, the School of International Service, and the Washington College of Law collaborate to create an inclusive, comprehensive curriculum.

Sage AI and Artisan AI Courses:
We offer courses fully dedicated to AI as well as courses that integrate AI into existing business disciplines. More than 40 courses already incorporate AI, ensuring students graduate with relevant, market-ready skills.

Graduate and Professional Programs:
We’ve enhanced our programs to include the innovative MS in Business Analytics and AI, and our new Graduate Certificate in Analytics and AI, equipping students with specialized knowledge essential for competitive advantage.

Ethical and Responsible AI Practices

IAAI recognizes the importance of guiding ethical and responsible AI use. Our institute provides clear policies, training, and resources to ensure our community understands and embraces responsible AI practices. We aim to produce leaders who advocate for AI transparency, accountability, and ethical decision-making.

Industry Engagement
and Experiential Learning

Real-world applications are central to our AI education model. Strategic partnerships with industry leaders offer unique experiential learning opportunities, including internships, research collaborations, and AI use-case competitions. This approach ensures our graduates enter the workforce with practical, impactful experiences.

Thought Leadership
and Research Excellence

Our institute actively promotes groundbreaking research at the intersection of AI, business, governance, and ethics. Supported by a robust team of affiliated faculty and external experts, the IAAI advances knowledge and thought leadership through:

+ High-impact, interdisciplinary research initiatives
+ Regular AI research workshops and seminars
+ Speaker series featuring industry and academic leaders such as executives from Google, Microsoft, and Swift Ventures.

[Kogod is] well ahead of so many universities around the world.”

— Brad Smith, Vice Chair & President, Microsoft

 

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Affiliate Faculty Fellows

Erran Carmel
Professor
Kogod School of Business
Information Technology & Analytics
Biography

Professor Carmel teaches Information Technology (I.T.). He is currently working on a number of research areas: Digital identity; Crypto ethics; Future of work.


During the early decades of the rise of the global internet, Carmel studied the globalization of technology work and wrote three books in this domain. Carmel’s 1999 book "Global Software Teams" was the first on this topic -- and is considered a landmark in the field, helping many organizations take their first steps into distributed tech work. His second book "Offshoring Information Technology" came out in 2005 and became popular as outsourcing began to be taught in business schools around the world. His 2011 book is about the special issues that time zone separation imposes on global coordination of work. “I’m Working While They’re Sleeping: Time Zone Separation Challenges and Solutions” is co-authored with his AU colleague Alberto Espinosa.

He has written over 100 articles, reports, and manuscripts. He consults and speaks to industry and professional groups.
He is a tenured full Professor at the Information Technology department, Kogod School of Business at American University. In 2014-2016 Carmel was interim Dean of the Kogod School of Business.

In the 1990s he co-founded and led AU’s program in Management of Global Information Technology. He has been a Visiting Professor at Haifa University (Israel), University College Dublin (Ireland), at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez (Chile), Beijing Normal University (China), and Ca' Foscari University of Venice (Italy).

More About Erran Carmel

Mark Clark
Associate Professor
Department of Management
(202)-885-5950
Kogod School of Business
New Mexico (3201) - 343
Email Mark Clark
Biography

Dr. Clark has expertise in high performing teams, leadership, diversity, and strategic human capital. His current research projects include work in multi-path leadership, team knowledge sharing, cybersecurity knowledge networks, team adaptation, innovation through design teams and multiteam systems, and stigmatized occupations. Six Paths to Leadership: Lessons from Successful Executives, Politicians, Entrepreneurs, and More, his book with coauthor Meredith Persily Lamel, was published in 2021.

Clark's field research engages a variety of organizations, including medical, design, and sports teams, high-tech companies, and entrepreneurial startups. His work has been published in top academic outlets, including the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Design Studies, Human Resource Management, and Group Dynamics, and has been presented at conferences and workshops around the world.

Before earning his Ph.D., Professor Clark gained a variety of experiences in public and private sector management, as a consultant, program director, trainer, treatment specialist, and board member. His clients have included some of the largest – and some of the smallest – companies in the world. He has held visiting scholar appointments at Instituto de Empresa (Madrid, Spain), ISCTE (Lisbon, Portugal), and Erasmus University (Rotterdam, Netherlands).

At Kogod, Professor Clark's courses include Leading High Performance Teams, Leadership Challenges & Competencies, Management of Organizations and Human Capital, Leading Organizational Change, Organization and Social Network Analysis, and Strategic Human Capital Management.

More About Mark Clark

Derrick Cogburn
Professor
Kogod School of Business, School of International Service
Environment, Development, & Health
Biography

Dr. Derrick L. Cogburn is Professor at American University in Washington, DC. He has a joint appointment in the School of International Service where he serves in the Department of Environment, Development & Health; and in the Kogod School of Business where he serves in the Department of Information Technology & Analytics. He also serves at the founding Executive Director of the AU Institute on Disability and Public Policy (IDPP), is Faculty Co-Director of the Internet Governance Lab (IGL), and is Director of COTELCO the Collaboration Laboratory. Dr. Cogburn’s multifaceted research interests are located at the intersection of information technology, global governance, and socio-economic development. He uses a variety of computational text mining and data analytics approaches including unsupervised and supervised machine learning and artificial intelligence methodologies to better understand large-scale text based datasets in the areas of cybersecurity, disability policy, and distributed collaboration in knowledge work. He has published widely, with his most recent books being: Researching Internet Governance: Methods, Frameworks, Futures (MIT Press, 2020); Transnational Advocacy Networks in the Information Society: Partners or Pawns? (Palgrave-McMillian, 2017); Making Disability Rights Real in Southeast Asia: Implementing the CRPD in ASEAN (Lexington, 2016); and The Turn to Infrastructure in Internet Governance (Palgrave-McMillan, 2016). He is Editor of the Palgrave Macmillan book series Information Technology and Global Governance and serves on editorial boards for Journal of Information Technology and Politics, Review of Policy Research, and Journal of Political Science Education. He is former Chair of the Review Panel for the American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Diplomacy, Security and Development, Science Technology Policy Fellowships, and served as a member of the inaugural AAAS Big Data and Analytics Fellowship Committee and returned to serve as its chair. He served as a member of the High-Level Panel of Advisors for the United Nations Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technologies and Development (UNGAID). Dr. Cogburn has been Principal Investigator on grants from a wide variety of government, private sector, and foundation sources including, the National Science Foundation Department of Education, Microsoft, Microsoft Research, Hewlett Packard, Cisco Systems, JPMorgan Chase, the WK Kellogg Foundation, and The Nippon Foundation. He also served on the Committee of Visitors for the Office of Cyberinfrastructure at the National Science Foundation. At Syracuse University, he was tenured Associate Professor in the School of Information Studies and Senior Research Associate in the Moynihan Institute at the Maxwell School. He is past president of the Information, Technology, and Politics section of the American Political Science Association and of the International Communication section of the International Studies Association. He served as Executive Director of the Global Information Infrastructure Commission-Africa and Vice Chair of the Global Internet Governance Academic Network. He holds a PhD in political science from Howard University in Washington, DC, where he was a W.K. Kellogg doctoral fellow at the Ralph J. Bunche International Affairs Center.

More About Derrick Cogburn

Nicole Darnall
Eminent Scholar Chair in Sustainability
Sustainable Enterprise and Sustainable Purchasing
Kogod School of Business, School of Public Affairs
Casey Evans
Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs and Student Services
Department of Accounting and Taxation
(202) 885-6675
KSB - Accounting
Kogod - 108
Email Casey Evans
Biography

Professor Evans is a Certified Public Accountant and a Certified Fraud Examiner and has extensive industry experience handling a range of forensic accounting issues, including fraud investigations, Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Justice enforcement actions, financial reporting and disclosure issues, technical accounting issues, and internal control reviews.

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Krisztina Domjan
Senior Professorial Lecturer
College of Arts and Sciences
Literature
Biography

Krisztina Domjan is a progressive educator with experience in a range of educational settings: higher, adult, and secondary education of civilian and military learners. She has taught Intercultural Studies, Research Writing, Composition and Discussion courses in Hungary, in England, in Germany (military base) and in the USA. She is an advocate of lifelong learning, professional development, innovative teaching practices, continuous fieldwork and qualitative research in education for the enhancement of the learning experience, inclusion and student retention. She shares innovative and stimulating ideas and professional development resources with colleagues and in professional learning circles. She has experience teaching in-person and online courses.

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Charles Duan
Assistant Professor
Washington College of Law
Law
Biography

Charles Duan is an assistant professor at American University Washington College of Law. His research focuses on how intellectual property and technology law interact with public policy and the public interest. He has written about patent law and drug pricing, copyright protection in legal texts, government use of patents, consumer interests in technology, and conflicts between regulation and intellectual property.

Duan previously was a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell Tech and a research fellow at Colorado Law School, working on National Science Foundation–funded Internet law research. He was also the director of technology and innovation policy at the R Street Institute, the director of the patent reform project at Public Knowledge, and a patent attorney at the law firm Knobbe Martens. In addition to his academic publications, he has authored over two hundred amicus curiae briefs, policy papers, administrative comments, and media articles, which have been cited in the Supreme Court and federal courts of appeals. He received an A.B. degree in Computer Science from Harvard College, and his J.D. from Harvard Law School.

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Anna Fung
Assistant Professor
Kogod School of Business
Management
Biography

Anna Fung is an Assistant Professor of Management at the Kogod School of Business in American University.

Her research explores the intersection of inventive breakthroughs and sustainability. She investigates how companies can leverage innovation to reduce environmental harm, promote sustainable business practices alongside ESG and CSR initiatives, and create long-term value in a rapidly changing technological landscape. By integrating cutting-edge technologies, such as computational linguistics, with traditional methodologies (e.g., interviews, regressions, and surveys), her work aims to identify innovative pathways for addressing global sustainability challenges to create lasting impact. Her research has been published in many outlets, including the Strategic Management Journal, the Psychological Bulletin, and the Academy of Management Best Paper Proceedings.

She has taught classes in Strategy, Entrepreneurial Strategy, and International Strategy across undergraduate and graduate levels. At Kogod, she teaches and coordinates the MGMT-458 undergraduate capstone course, "Strategic Management."

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Jeffrey Lee
Associate Professor
Kogod School of Business
Marketing
Biography

Professor Lee conducts research in digital marketing, language in social media, and word-of-mouth influence in consumer behavior. Current research topics include virality in word-of-mouth, brand management in social media, and how influencers affect brand perceptions. His research has been featured in publications such as the Sloan Management Review, the Journal of Consumer Psychology, the Journal of Consumer Research and the Journal of Marketing Research, as well as media outlets such as Modern Advertising, The Financial Times, and The Huffington Post.

Prior to joining American University, Lee served on the faculty at MIT Sloan and NYU Shanghai.

More About Jeffrey Lee

Robin Lumsdaine
Professor
Kogod School of Business
Finance and Real Estate
Biography

Robin Lumsdaine joined the Kogod School of Business at American University as the Crown Prince of Bahrain Chair in International Finance. She was previously an Associate Director in the Division of Banking Supervision and Regulation and Head of the Quantitative Risk Management Group at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Before joining the Board, Professor Lumsdaine was a Director in the Global Markets Research division of Deutsche Bank where she served as the Global Inflation-Linked Bond Strategist. She has also held positions as Professor of Economics at Brown University, Senior Economist at the President's Council of Economic Advisers, and Assistant Professor at Princeton University.

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Ali Sanati
Assistant Professor
Kogod School of Business
Finance and Real Estate
Biography

Professor Sanati is a faculty member in the Finance Department at the Kogod School of Business, American University. He joined AU in 2018 after earning his PhD in Finance from the University of Minnesota. He also holds an MBA and a BSc in Engineering. His research lies in the field of corporate finance, focusing on the determinants of firms’ financing decisions, inefficiencies in capital raising, and the differences between public and private capital markets. His work has been published in top finance journals, including the Journal of Financial Economics, the Review of Financial Studies, and the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analaysis, and presented at various academic conferences and policy institutions, such as the American Finance Association (AFA), the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the Federal Reserve Board, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

At AU, Professor Sanati teaches "Business Finance" to undergraduate students and "Advanced Quantitative Methods and Machine Learning in Finance" to graduate students. Prior to his academic career, he was a financial analyst in the financial services industry and the co-founder and CEO of an engineering startup company. For more information, visit his personal website.

More About Ali Sanati

Ioannis Spyridopoulos
Assistant Professor
Kogod School of Business
Finance and Real Estate
Chen tang
Assistant Professor
Kogod School of Business
Management
Biography

Chen Tang is an Assistant Professor of Management in the Kogod School of Business at American University. He received his Ph.D. in Human Resources and Industrial Relations from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Chen's research interests primarily include HR analytics, research methods, and behavioral ethics. His work has been published in journals such as the Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, and the Journal of Business Ethics.

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Yitong Wang
Assistant Professor
Kogod School of Business
Information Technology & Analytics
Jiali Zhou
Assistant Professor
Kogod School of Business
Information Technology & Analytics
Biography

My main research area is cybersecurity economics and policies. My recent research addresses questions such as how to improve cybersecurity with crowdsourcing? How to address the security risks brought by AI technologies and hacker marketplaces? How government policies affect cybersecurity? I am a recipient of ACM SIGMIS Doctoral Dissertation Award from the Association of Information Systems.

More About Jiali Zhou

Shawn Jenzen
Professorial Lecturer
Kogod School of Business
Information Technology & Analytics
Biography

Shawn Janzen is a information scientist with expertise in information behavior, data analytics, sociotechnical cybersecurity, cognitive security, public administration, public policy, and technology policy.

Mr. Janzen's research interests span managerial information behaviors, particularly how senior leadership decision-making translates into organizational behaviors. He is also broadly interested in how individuals and organizations create, choose to share, and adopt information that becomes part of institutional knowledge, engagement, and administration. He focuses these interests on issues related to disruptive and emerging technologies, cybersecurity, ethics, and public policy. Mr. Janzen is also interested in helping advance data analytics instructional content and tools to make the user experience more inclusive and accessible. Some of his recent work appeared at the Academy of Management, the Association for Information Science and Technology, and the International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction.

Outside Kogod, Mr. Janzen is Affiliated Faculty at The Shahal M. Khan Cyber and Economic Security Institute and member of the AU Cyber Community.

Prior to joinging AU, Mr. Janzen was a researcher at the Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security (ARLIS). At ARLIS, Mr. Janzen helped lead research projects on global IT assessment and mission assurance related planning, as well as participated in research teams pertaining to mis-/disinformation, cognitive security, knowledge production, and insider threats on behalf of the US Department of Defense. Select other professional experiences include the U.S. Peace Corps, the European Parliament, and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. He also served on several nonprofit boards and consulted on organizational management, international affairs, and institutional sustainability. Mr. Janzen continues to regularly serve as a judge at various data challenge competitions.

More About Shawn Jenzen

Mark Nelson
Assistant Professor
College of Arts and Sciences
Computer Science
Biography

Prof. Mark J. Nelson is a computer scientist with a research focus on artificial intelligence (AI). His research primarily uses games as a domain of study. This includes: technical research that uses games to analyze the robustness of AI decision-making algorithms; work on bots that can play and analyze games; design-support work that uses AI to empower professional and novice designers; and conceptual work on formal models of games' mechanical and meaning-making elements. In addition to the Department of Computer Science, he researches and teaches in the interdisciplinary AU Game Center.

He is currently (2020–2024) the Principal Investigator of the National Science Foundation research project Characterizing Algorithm-Relative Difficulty of Agent Benchmarks.

Other research interests include computer music, domain-specific programming languages, and the history of computing.

Before coming to American University, he was a faculty member, researcher, and student at various places around the world: Falmouth University (UK), the IT University of Copenhagen (Denmark), the University of California Santa Cruz (USA), the Georgia Institute of Technology (USA), and Harvey Mudd College (USA).

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Tommy White
Director, Veloric Center for Entrepreneurship
Department of Management
(202) 885-1862
Kogod School of Business
DMTI - 231
Email Tommy White
Biography

Tommy White is a Senior Professorial Lecturer (formerly “Executive-in-Residence”) at the Kogod School of Business at American University. In this role, he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on introduction to business, introduction to entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship business planning, revenue/financial forecast modeling and start-up launch, and venture capital.

Professor White is also the Director of the Veloric Center for Entrepreneurship, where he works promotes/directs entrepreneurial experiential learning activities throughout the AU campus and directly works with student entrepreneurs launching companies.

Professor White is an entrepreneur with 3 successful exits and 2 failed ventures. He is an active angel investor and coaches/mentors 20 – 25 startup ventures annually throughout the DC Startup Ecosystem.

Professor White received his MBA in Marketing from the Kogod School of Business, American University (1995) and his BA in Economics and History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1986).

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Patrick Wu
Assistant Professor
College of Arts and Sciences
Computer Science
Biography

Prof. Patrick Wu's research focuses on developing AI/ML and natural language processing approaches to computational social science. These methods address research questions about topics such as political elite and non-elite ideology, affective polarization on social media, and hateful and abusive speech and memes.

More About Patrick Wu

Partnering with Perplexity AI
aligns perfectly with Kogod’s deep focus on preparing future business leaders for an AI-driven world.

David Marchick, Dean of the Kogod School of Business

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Arguably the key player
is the Kogod School of Business, which has aggressively, quickly, and emphatically leaned into incorporating AI into its curriculum.”

— Jeff Wilser, Host, AI Curious Podcast

Jeff Wilser
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