McCoy College of Business welcomes incoming tenure-track faculty

SAN MARCOS, Texas — The McCoy College of Business at Texas State University proudly welcomes a record cohort of nine distinguished scholars to its tenure-line faculty ranks for the fall 2025 semester. This marks the largest group of tenure-line scholars joining the college in its history and aligns with a period of significant enrollment growth and a surge in academic innovation at McCoy College and Texas State University.

The newly appointed faculty brings a broad range of expertise across business disciplines, including accounting, analytics, economics, finance, information systems, and marketing. Their diverse research backgrounds and industry experience enrich the college’s academic excellence, promote interdisciplinary collaboration, and create opportunities for student engagement in advanced research and experiential learning.

Dr. Sanjay Ramchander, Dean of the McCoy College of Business, shared his excitement about the remarkable growth. 

“We are building a powerhouse business school, and this new talent will propel us to even greater heights,” Ramchander said. “Their insights and leadership will help us transform business education at Texas State, creating pathways for student success and knowledge discovery. The momentum continues next year with an additional ten faculty lines already approved, underscoring the university’s long-term vision for expansion and impact.”

The move also aligns with McCoy College's research mission and the university's broader "Run to R1" initiative, referring to The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education that designates universities with "very high research activity."

The “Run to R1” is a strategic effort by the university to increase research and development, improve student success, and expand the university's global impact.

New faculty highlights include:

Dr. Vikrant “Vic” Anand, assistant professor of accounting, began his career as an engineer and financial analyst at Ford Motor Company after earning a mechanical engineering degree from MIT. He later completed his MBA at Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business, followed by an M.S. and Ph.D. in accounting from Cornell University's SC Johnson College of Business. His research focuses on financial reporting quality, auditing, and the interplay between corporate governance and earnings management.

Dr. Ayan Ghosh Dastidar, assistant professor of marketing, holds a Ph.D. in marketing from Georgia State University’s J. Mack Robinson College of Business. Dastidar brings expertise in digital marketing, retail analytics, and consumer decision-making strategies. His current research examines online marketplaces, pricing dynamics, and the impact of technology on marketing effectiveness.

Dr. Quazi Fidia Farah, assistant professor of economics, received her doctorate in economics from Kansas State University in 2018. She was a full-time instructor at the McCoy College of Business before being promoted to a tenure-track faculty member. Farah specializes in labor economics, health economics, and applied econometric analysis. Her research explores the determinants of health outcomes, socioeconomic mobility, and labor market inequalities.

Dr. Kendall Kennedy, assistant professor of economics, holds a doctorate in economics from the Mitch Daniels School of Business at Purdue University. Before joining McCoy College this fall, he was an assistant professor of economics in the Department of Finance and Economics at Mississippi State University. His research interests include education, inequality, and present and historical discrimination.

Dr. Ishitha Kumar — now an assistant professor of finance — previously held a full-time instructor role at McCoy College before she joined as a tenure-track faculty member. She earned a doctorate in aerospace engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and a doctorate in finance from Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. Kumar’s research interests include FinTech, financial advisory markets, the effects of competition on fraud, and misconduct.

Dr. Fernanda Muniz, assistant professor of marketing, earned her BBA in marketing and MBA from the Greehey School of Business at St. Mary’s University before pursuing her Ph.D. in marketing from the G. Brint Ryan College of Business at the University of North Texas. Her research interests include brand management, corporate social responsibility, cross-cultural and global marketing, and consumer behavior.

Dr. Lingna (Selina) Sun, assistant professor of finance, holds a doctorate in finance from the Robert J. Manning School of Business at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Sun’s research interests focus on the impact of labor, shareholder litigation, and corporate governance on cash management and shareholder wealth in publicly traded companies.

Dr. Toktam Valizadeh, assistant professor of analytics, earned a Ph.D. in statistics from Southern Illinois University in 2024. Her research explores dimension reduction techniques within multivariate time series models. She’s also experienced in multivariate analysis and tackling high-dimensional data.

Dr. Renzhi (Fred) Zhao, assistant professor of information systems, received his BBA with a major in information systems from the University of Cincinnati’s Carl H. Lindner College of Business in 2019 before pursuing his master’s and doctorate at the J. Mack Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University. His research interests include human-AI interaction, the development of open-source software community dynamics.

The addition of this diverse pool of scholars strengthens the college's teaching and research capacity, better positioning the university to reach its "Run to R1" goal while empowering students, growing community impact, and driving innovation in the years ahead. ✯