2016 Best 40 Under 40 Professors: Erika Hall, Goizueta School of Business

Erika Hall Goizueta

Erika Hall

Assistant Professor of Organization & Management

Emory University, Goizueta School of Business

Barely over a year removed from her Ph.D. program at Northwestern University, Goizueta’s Erika Hall – now 31 years old – has been named to the Atlanta Business Constitution’s 30 Under 30 list, had her academic studies published in top journals that include Psychological Science and Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, and she and her research has appeared in mainstream press outlets including the New York Times and NPR. Hall’s research examines implicit biases of race and gender. She’s widely known for her study of racial perceptions such as the ways descriptions such as “Black” and “African American” are perceived and how leaders with multiple minority identities are perceived in teams and organizations.

Professor Hall is currently a member of LEAD Atlanta’s Class of 2016, a leadership development program targeting promising young professionals in the metro-Atlanta region. Prior to Goizueta, she was a research associate at Harvard Business School.

Age: 31

At current institution since: 2014

Education: PhD in Management & Organizations, Organizational Behavior, Kellogg School of

Management, 2014; BS in Finance, R.H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 2007

Courses you currently teach: Negotiations

Professor you most admire: Tie between Adam Galinsky and Kathy Phillips – both have been the most amazing, supportive mentors to me, both personally and professionally.

“I knew I wanted to be a b-school professor when…I was a research assistant for Dr. Ian Williamson during my junior year at Maryland. He was 100% the reason I chose to be a professor. He introduced me to other faculty members, told me about the PhD Project, showed me that you could earn a living by pursuing interesting questions, and even brought me back cool souvenirs from his talks at Universities in Poland and Australia (which obviously, sealed the deal).”

“If I weren’t a b-school professor…I would be an artist. I sold prints of my paintings through a mail order company I founded in high school, and was in an arts scholars program in college.”

Most memorable moment in the classroom or in general as a professor: Negotiations is the most rewarding class to teach, because you can make your students money! The most rewarding moments have been when a student reveals in class that I just earned them an extra $5,000 – $10,000 in salary because of the negotiation techniques I taught them.

What professional achievement are you most proud of? Although this may sound unorthodox, my highest professional achievement was a letter from an inmate at a correctional facility in New York. The inmate wrote that he didn’t have access to the internet to search academic papers in prison, but that he was extremely interested in reading my research and learning about its implications. I cite this as my highest achievement because I truly felt that my impact extended past the ivory tower to the underserved communities that it could help most. The article that he mentioned focused on biases in the criminal justice system. Thus, the work could be significant for a defendant’s rightful vindication in the justice system.

What do you enjoy most about being a business school professor? I love that you actually create knowledge. You research a question and actually produce a finding that will inform your students’ actions in the business world.

What do you enjoy least about being a business school professor? When students are hyper focused on their grades to the exclusion of learning and the application of knowledge.

Fun fact about yourself: I don’t do favorites. Ever since I was very young, I’ve been equally enamored by activities like sewing my own clothes to engineering toy robots. Thus, the following favorite section might be frustrating for some people to read, but it was hard even to nail my favorites down to a top three.

Favorite book: Eat Pray Love, Committed, and The Body Book.

Favorite movie: Way too many to choose! My 2015 favorites were The Big Short, Room, and Dope.

Favorite type of music: Three-way tie for anything Amy Winehouse, Beyoncé, or Michael Jackson.

Favorite television show: VICE, Ray Donovan, and Real Housewives of *fill in the blank with any city*.

Favorite vacation spot: Dubai, Madrid, and Las Vegas.

What are your hobbies? The only thing I’ve done consistently enough to call a hobby is running. In 2014, I injured my leg after running the first 16 miles of the New York Marathon, and I had to limp the last 10.2 miles to the finish.  When I still wanted to keep running after that grueling experience, I realized that running was officially a hobby.

“If I had my way, the business school of the future would have…more socioeconomic, race, and gender-based diversity.”

DON’T MISS: THE COMPLETE LIST: POETS&QUANTS’ 2016 MOST OUTSTANDING B-SCHOOL PROFS UNDER 40

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