SOM honors faculty excellence

The School of Management presented its 2010-11 faculty awards in a ceremony on April 13. Yan Zhang received the Corning Award for Excellence in Research, and Sabatino “Dino” Silveri received the SOM Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Zhang, an associate professor of accounting, focuses her primary research on accounting information and capital markets. She studies the impact of corporate liquidity, transparency, governance, short selling, internal control disclosure and the role of audit committees. Her research has been published in top journals such as Accounting Review, Contemporary Accounting Research and the Journal of Business. She was recently awarded the American Accounting Association Steve Berlin/Citgo research grant and the Pricewaterhouse Coopers INQuries research grant.

“I feel very honored and very humbled,” said Zhang, who thanked her SOM colleagues for the recognition. “I’m thankful for my mentor Bill Cready [faculty member at the University of Texas at Dallas], and I’m happy that he’s here to share in this today.”

Silveri, an assistant professor of finance, was honored for his dedication to providing students with a collegial and stimulating learning environment. His colleagues say he endeavors to strike a balance between academic rigor and real-world practicality, and believes it’s imperative for students to challenge the depths of their own understanding.

“I don’t view my commitment to teaching as ending when the bell rings, so to speak,” Silveri said. “I love spending time with students. And I feel fortunate that teaching is such a large part of my career.”