The program paired undergraduate students with faculty members to support AI-related projects across the school. Student fellows helped develop and deliver workshops, interview faculty and build materials for future courses and boot camps.

Sakura Kawakami ’26 worked with Scott Oakes, assistant teaching professor of management, and fellow students Julia Amodeo ‘26 and Katie Geraghty ’26 on workshops for Gateway classes.

The team visited eight classes and reached approximately 240 students through 20-minute sessions with hands-on exercises. The workshops introduced students to Gemini Pro, available through Elon, and focused on practical skills such as improving prompts through iteration and added context.

“The primary goal was to establish a baseline of AI fluency among Gateway students, who are primarily first-year business students,” Oakes said. “We also wanted to test whether a short, bootcamp-style training session could effectively introduce students to practical AI skills within a classroom setting.”

Faculty established the project’s overall objectives before the students joined. Kawakami, Amodeo and Geraghty then helped develop classroom activities, learning objectives, presentation materials, pre- and post-session surveys, and the rollout plan. The students also led the workshops and helped analyze the resulting data.

“My role as an AI Fellow was to act as a bridge between students and faculty, advising students on how to use AI to enhance their learning, not replace it,” said Kawakami, a Business Analytics and Project Management major from Rotorua, New Zealand. “The goal was to make sure students felt confident using these tools in ways that supported them.”

One focus was helping students understand that effective use of AI often requires refining a prompt rather than accepting the first response.

“One of our biggest teaching points was the importance of iteration when prompting AI,” Kawakami said. “By refining and tailoring your prompts to your own needs, you get far more accurate and useful responses.”

Oakes said the student fellows strengthened the project by bringing their own experiences with AI into the classroom.

“Peer-to-peer learning is incredibly powerful,” he said. “First-year students often feel more comfortable asking questions and exploring new technologies when they see successful upper-level students demonstrating how they actually use those tools.”

Another team worked with Kem Zhang, associate professor of business analytics, on projects designed to support more advanced AI use in business courses.

Thomas Case ’26, a supply chain management and business analytics major from Atlanta, G.A. and Oliver Lorraine ’27, a project management and business analytics major from Red Bank, N.J. gathered input from faculty and developed materials for future workshops. One project focused on Associate Professor David Jiang’s, Bring the Venture to Life entrepreneurship course, where students develop and launch venture ideas.

Based on the needs identified for the course, the team created materials for an “AI-powered entrepreneurship” workshop covering topics such as prompting for code, e-commerce, payment integration and deployment.

Case led the workshop design and drafted presentation materials. Lorraine documented the development process and built reusable coding templates for future workshops and boot camps.

“The transition from AI users to AI builders or AI architects is an important distinction because knowing how to use a tool generally is much different than knowing how to use a tool to innovate,” said Case.

Lorraine also created Google Colab notebooks with coding templates for future use.

Zhang said the goal is to help students move beyond basic familiarity with AI tools.

“For business students, knowing how to use an AI tool is expected,” Zhang said. “The real advantage comes when they understand how these tools can be used in problem solving and to create concrete, AI-based solutions.”

Several projects from the spring semester are expected to continue during the 2026-27 academic year, including the entrepreneurship workshop, an AI Boot Camp for incoming students and additional work on AI integration.

The spring 2026 AI Student Fellows were Brandon Boudreau ‘27, Thomas Case ‘26, Oliver Lorraine ‘27, Dylan Stone ‘28, Julia Amodeo ‘26, Sakura Kawakami ‘26, Lindsay Balick ‘27, Katie Geraghty ‘26, Katrina Papierman ’26 and Tristan D’Adamo ‘28.

She has had plenty of opportunities to find out.

As a commercial sales operations intern with Labcorp’s Southeast Division team in Tampa, Fla., Green has worked on projects involving client communication, sales data, finance and presentations. No two assignments have looked exactly the same, which has become one of her favorite parts of the experience.

“I’ve had the opportunity to try a little bit of everything, in both finance and sales, which has helped me discover what I enjoy and what I want to continue exploring,” Green said.

Green was drawn to Labcorp by its mission to improve health and improve lives. She saw the internship as a chance to gain corporate experience while contributing to a company whose work has a direct impact on others.

Throughout the summer, she worked on multiple projects. Some required her to reach out to clients and gather information. Others involved analyzing sales data, creating graphs and tables, and presenting her findings in a way that could help leaders better understand performance.

One assignment challenged Green to make sense of a spreadsheet containing thousands of data points. She built pivot tables to organize the information, identify relevant patterns and answer specific business questions.

“At first, the volume of data felt overwhelming, but working through it taught me how to organize complex information and use it to answer specific business questions,” Green said.

The experience strengthened more than her technical Excel skills. It showed her how analysts determine what information matters, identify patterns and present their findings in a way that can guide decisions.

“The project helped me understand how data analysis turns a large amount of information into insights that can support business decisions,” she said.

Another project required Green to translate large amounts of sales data into graphs and tables that leaders could review quickly and use to assess performance.

“It was rewarding to create something that helped make the data more accessible and gave leaders a clearer view of where the team stood,” Green said. “The experience showed me how important it is not only to analyze information, but also to present it in a way that supports decision-making.”

The range of assignments has helped Green build technical skills while also learning more about the kind of work that interests her. She has enjoyed moving between data analysis, problem-solving and collaboration with colleagues across different areas of the business.

Although she has not settled on a specific career path, the internship has clarified what she wants her future work to involve.

“I want to pursue a career where I can use data to solve problems, contribute to business decisions and do work that has a meaningful impact,” Green said.

Green credits her Elon coursework and professors with helping her arrive prepared to contribute. She specifically recognized professors Feng Dong, Brandon Sheridan, Julie Swanner, Lakeisha Vance and Drew Peabody for helping her build the knowledge and confidence she has relied on throughout the summer.

“Looking back, every class I have taken at Elon has helped me in one way or another, whether I realized it at the time or not,” Green said. “They gave me the foundation and confidence I needed to walk into my internship ready to learn, contribute and make the most of every opportunity.”

Her days are full. As a member of the Elon women’s soccer team, Green is often up around 5:45 a.m. for practice before beginning her workday. But between the early mornings, new software and varied assignments, she has learned the value of remaining curious and open to unfamiliar work.

Her advice to other Love School of Business students is to ask questions and take advantage of opportunities outside their comfort zones.

“Every opportunity is a chance to learn something new,” Green said, “and you never know what experience might end up shaping your future career.”

The Love School of Business is one of 208 schools included on the unranked annual list, which is based on surveys of business school administrators and MBA students.

The program earned its for faculty teaching and availability. Students gave Elon a 97 for the quality of its professors as teachers and a 96 for faculty accessibility outside the classroom.

“Our faculty set a high standard for teaching while remaining deeply invested in each student’s success,” said Haya Ajjan, dean of the Love School of Business. “They bring strong academic and professional experience into the classroom, challenge students to grow and make themselves available beyond class. That combination is central to the Elon MBA experience.”

The Princeton Review selected the programs using data collected in 2025–26 from administrators at 245 schools offering on-campus MBA programs and more than 24,250 students. More than 60 data points were considered, including academics, faculty, career services, technology, campus life and student satisfaction.

The Princeton Review’s of the Love School of Business highlights the MBA program’s flexible format, small class sizes and supportive environment. Students surveyed for the profile praised the program’s leadership focus, accessible professors and options for working professionals.

Students also noted that professors are willing to meet outside class and bring professional experience into their courses.

51������ the MBA program

The Master of Business Administration program is designed for professionals who want to strengthen their business knowledge and leadership skills while continuing to work.

The program offers full- and part-time options, small classes and close access to faculty. Students also receive advising and career support throughout the program.

Applications are reviewed throughout the year for fall, winter and spring enrollment.

The case, “” focuses on Grupo Los Danzantes as the company considers whether to launch a lower-cost mezcal line to remain competitive in an increasingly crowded global spirits market.

The proposed line, Encantado, could help the company reach broader international audiences and respond to distributor needs. But the move also raises questions about whether expansion could weaken the brand’s artisanal identity, cultural mission and long-standing relationships with producers.

The case asks students to weigh the strategic, operational and cultural trade-offs of growth within a mission-centered organization. Students must consider whether Destileria Los Danzantes should pursue category expansion or preserve its differentiated identity amid industry pressures.

The case was published by Harvard Business School through Harvard Business Publishing with co-authors James Riley and David G. Fubini at Harvard Business School and Bernal Cortes.

Harvard Business Publishing case studies are used by business educators to bring real-world decision-making into undergraduate, MBA and executive education programs.

Cerecedo Lopez joined 51������ in Fall 2024. Lopez’s teaching and research focus on organizational theory, entrepreneurship and strategy, with particular interest in how individuals make decisions under uncertainty.

The research, “” looks at how perceptions of inclusion and acceptance in residential communities carry into the workplace.

Using survey responses from 151 employees at a U.S.-based manufacturing company, the researchers found that employees who viewed their communities as more inclusive reported greater psychological safety at work. That sense of psychological safety not only inspires the confidence to express the one’s true self at work but is also linked to a stronger intent to stay with their organization.

Key findings:

• Community experiences carry into the workplace. Employees who perceived their communities as more inclusive reported greater psychological safety at work.
• Psychological safety is linked to retention. Employees who felt psychologically safe reported stronger intent to stay.
• Support from inclusive communities may also help when workplaces are perceived as less supportive. The connection between community inclusion and psychological safety was strongest among employees who viewed their organization’s diversity climate as less supportive.

The research is also part of discussions in Singh’s Organizational Behavior and DEI courses at Elon.

“It serves as a great way to help students understand that employees’ perceptions regarding organizational culture and inclusion are not confined to the workplace alone but are shaped by larger societal contexts,” Singh said. “I incorporate these discussions in my classroom to encourage students to think about how leaders can create psychologically safe environments and how organizations can engage with communities to support inclusion and employee retention.”

The study was co-authored with Sarthak Singh of Sheldon B. Lubar College of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and T.T. Selvarajan of the College of Business and Economics at California State University, East Bay and published in Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal.

Singh, who joined Elon in 2017, teaches courses in organizational behavior, human resource management and business ethics. His research has appeared in leading journals, including the Journal of Organizational Behavior, the Journal of Business Ethics and Human Resource Management.

The co-authored article, “,” looks at entrepreneurship beyond traditional business measures such as profit, growth and market opportunity.

It asks how religious beliefs and practices may shape the way entrepreneurs understand risk, make decisions, build organizations and define success. The research also considers how entrepreneurship may affect religious organizations and communities, making the relationship more complex than religion simply influencing business.

Key Highlights:

• Religion may shape entrepreneurship at multiple points, from how entrepreneurs recognize opportunities and judge risk to how they seek funding, respond to uncertainty and define success.
• Different religious traditions and practices may influence entrepreneurs in different ways. The article notes research connected to Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Judaism and other traditions, while cautioning that religion should not be treated as one single influence. Religious practice can also vary within the same religion.
• The article introduces a framework showing how religious beliefs and practices may overlap with entrepreneurial thinking and action. Religious beliefs may shape how entrepreneurs think about opportunity, while religious practices may shape how they build relationships, access resources or run organizations.
• The relationship may work both ways. Religion may shape entrepreneurship, but entrepreneurship may also shape religious organizations, practices and communities.
• Future research could look more closely at how religious entrepreneurs measure success beyond profit, including financial, social, psychological and spiritual outcomes.

“This research helps students think more carefully about how religion and faith can shape entrepreneurs’ motivations, decisions, relationships and definitions of success,” said Cerecedo Lopez. “That is especially relevant for students in the inaugural Love School of Business Summer Business Institute, who are serving as consultants for Hustle USA, a non-denominational, faith-based entrepreneurial support organization launching in Charlotte.”

The article was published in Entrepreneurship & Regional Development with co-authors Chris Welter and Brett Smith at Miami University Ohio, Amanda Lawson at the University of Cincinnati and David Townsend at Virginia Tech.

Cerecedo Lopez joined 51������ in Fall 2024. Lopez’s teaching and research focus on organizational theory, entrepreneurship and strategy, with particular interest in how individuals make decisions under uncertainty.

That question brought together students, professionals, community members and local government leaders for the Charlotte Decision Challenge, hosted through 51������’s Master of Science in Business Analytics Flex program in partnership with the City of Charlotte.

Guided throughout the day by Lakeisha Vance, assistant teaching professor of business analytics, and Vinayaka Gude, assistant professor of business analytics, participants worked in teams using real data and a custom analytics platform to explore potential impacts along the proposed Red Line corridor and develop recommendations aimed at supporting businesses and communities as growth continues across the region.

“One of the strengths of the MSBA Flex program is the opportunity to bring together industry partners, community leaders and learners from a variety of backgrounds to tackle real challenges,” said Mark Kurt, associate dean of curriculum and academic programming at the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business. “Partnerships like this allow us to apply analytics in ways that extend beyond the classroom and support the communities we serve.”

For city leaders, the challenge offered an opportunity to bring new voices into conversations that will help shape Charlotte’s future.

“As city leaders, we have to constantly ask ourselves who’s not here and who’s impacted by the decisions we’re making,” said Charlitta Hatch, deputy chief information officer and chief data and analytics officer for the City of Charlotte. “Bringing students, professionals and community members into that process helps us see challenges from new perspectives.”

Between July 2024 and July 2025, Charlotte added more residents than any other city in the nation.  Transportation infrastructure will play an important role in supporting that growth. As city leaders look toward future transit investments, they are also looking closely at lessons learned from previous transit projects and how those experiences can inform future decisions.

The proposed Red Line will bring commuter rail service to communities north of Charlotte, including Huntersville, Cornelius and Davidson. Throughout the challenge, participants looked to experiences from Charlotte’s existing Blue Line light rail system and explored themes including business ownership, entrepreneurship and economic mobility.

For Jackie Tynan, data analytics manager for the City of Charlotte, that combination of perspectives is exactly what makes partnerships like this valuable.

“The students here today are a different generation than those in leadership making the decisions,” Tynan said. “By including the voices of our future in the decisions, we can build stronger outcomes that reflect what matters most to them and better prepare them for what’s ahead. ”

Hatch described universities as “community think tanks” and emphasized the value of collaboration between higher education and local government.

“The partnerships are critical because we are limited in what we know and what we can do,” Hatch said. “The breadth that you have, from researchers to practitioners to emerging talent, really helps us make sure we are recommending the best solutions for our community.”

By the end of the event, participants had transformed publicly available data into recommendations for one of Charlotte’s most important future infrastructure projects, demonstrating the role collaboration can play in shaping stronger communities.

“It makes me hopeful about what a larger group can do over a longer period of time,” Tynan said.

Developed in collaboration with the City of Charlotte, the challenge focuses on how local businesses and communities may be affected as the proposed Red Line corridor moves forward. Participants will work in teams to explore real data, uncover insights and develop practical recommendations that can help city leaders better understand potential impacts and identify opportunities for support.

The event will take place from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at 51������ in Charlotte, located at 330 W. Tremont Avenue. No coding, programming or analytics experience is required.

“The Charlotte Decision Challenge reflects the kind of work our MSBA Flex program is designed to support,” said Mark Kurt, associate dean for the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business. “Participants will have the opportunity to use data in a practical, accessible way while contributing ideas that can support real decision-making in the Charlotte community.”

Individuals and teams are welcome to participate. The event is designed for anyone interested in business, analytics, public policy, economic development, transportation, community engagement or civic problem solving.

Breakfast, lunch and refreshments will be provided at no cost.

“I was always told going abroad would change you as a person, but I never knew that feeling was real,” said McDermott, a marketing and international business major from Newburyport, Mass. “If you had asked me three years ago where I thought I’d be, studying in Australia and working in Singapore would have never crossed my mind.”

This spring, the second-year class in the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business’s Business Fellows program studied abroad together through a new Asia-Pacific semester experience. The program began with coursework in Sydney, Australia, continued with a week in Vietnam and concluded with full-time internships in Singapore.

In Sydney, students took courses in management, marketing, operations and supply chain, and Australian life and culture. They then traveled to Vietnam for company meetings, lectures from local faculty and cultural activities before beginning internship placements in Singapore through Global Academic Ventures.

For McDermott, the semester’s first weeks in Australia helped her build confidence in unfamiliar settings.

“By immersing myself in the culture, I found an increase in my confidence levels,” McDermott said. “I became more independent, more willing to take risks and more open-minded in situations that once would have felt daunting.”

Her internship in Singapore also challenged her expectations. McDermott expected more content creation work, but her early assignments focused on writing scripts for a developing podcast.

“I learned that not every professional experience will fit perfectly into my expectations, and growth often comes from the assignments that challenge me the most,” McDermott said.

Eli Karpas ’28, a finance major from Houston, Texas, chose the program because he wanted to explore a part of the world he had never experienced.

“I chose this program because I wanted to explore Asia, a new area of the world I’ve never been to,” Karpas said.

While in Australia, Karpas said he embraced the daily rhythm of Sydney, from morning runs along Bondi Beach to afternoons at beachside cafes after class. The semester also gave him opportunities to travel beyond Sydney, including Fiji, Tasmania and New Zealand.

“I didn’t expect there to be so many opportunities to travel outside of Sydney,” Karpas said.

In Singapore, Karpas worked as an investment analyst at a boutique private advisory firm.

“I was thrown into real work from day one,” Karpas said. “I reviewed and created pitch decks for fund managers, built market maps, wrote about global events affecting private markets and attended a conference on artificial intelligence in the workforce.”

Olivia Gover ’28, a marketing major from Stamford, Conn., said her internship helped her better understand cross-cultural communication. Working with colleagues from a variety of cultural and professional backgrounds, she learned how strongly workplace communication depends on patience, curiosity and mutual understanding.

“Not only was I able to build a deeper connection with the people I work with, but I also gained new global knowledge,” Gover said.

Some of that learning happened in everyday moments. Coworkers taught her local expressions, shared food during lunch and asked questions about life in the United States.

“This showed me how a well-rounded work environment requires mutual understanding of one another, allowing relationships to build,” Gover said.

For Parker Forgash ’28, an entrepreneurship major from Laguna Beach, Calif., the internship showed him the difference between classroom confidence and professional readiness.

“There was a version of me from before this semester who thought he was pretty prepared,” Forgash said. “He had taken the finance courses, written the case studies, and could talk about markets with enough fluency to feel confident in a classroom.”

That confidence was tested when Forgash received an open-ended research assignment early in his internship. With no template and a real deadline, he had to analyze unfamiliar markets, organize his findings and work through uncertainty.

“Delivering that report was the first moment I felt like I was actually contributing something real, not just completing an assignment for a grade,” Forgash said.

By the end of the semester, the experience had changed how students understood themselves as learners and future professionals.

“If I were sitting in an interview, I would want an employer to know that I am someone who can easily adapt, communicate effectively, and be placed outside my comfort zone,” McDermott said. “This abroad experience has shaped me as a student today and the professional I hope to become.”

Teza shares what she hopes to accomplish in her new role and how 51������ students can benefit.

How would you describe your career path?

My career path consists of a series of lateral and advancement roles that provided exposure to multiple facets of the apparel industry. These positions prepared me to lead several market-leading brands, develop strong teams and implement transformation across complex regional and global businesses.

What does serving as an Executive in Residence at the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business mean to you?

I am excited to mentor and guide the next generation of leaders. I look forward to translating classroom learning into real-world scenarios and creating professional pathways through networking, internship opportunities and exposure to different industries.

What kinds of conversations and experiences do you hope to create for Elon students during your time on campus?

I look forward to meaningful conversations regarding leadership, insights into managing domestic and global businesses and how students can create a pathway to finding a career in which they will thrive.

What perspectives from your work in global consumer brands are you most excited to share with Elon students?

Leading a winning global brand combines emotional brand equity, operational scale and local execution. Managing global teams is both challenging and rewarding; it is critical to be well-versed in regional cultures to maximize employee engagement, create consistency in brand positioning and delight consumers.

What advice would you offer students who are interested in leading teams or managing large, complex organizations?

Leading a large organization requires the alignment of people, capital and processes to deliver results at scale. Aligning on priorities, building strong teams, operational excellence, constant communication, establishing decision-making rights and protecting a culture are the foundational blocks for success.

Beyond your résumé, what should people know about you and what you enjoy outside of work?

My primary focus is my family and making the most out of every day. My husband and I travel extensively to explore off-the-beaten-path locations, and we have a passion for boating, pickleball and golf. We enjoy spending time with our three children as they navigate their own career and life journeys, and we continue to coach people and businesses to help them maximize their potential.