Bentley University Names Arts and Sciences Fellows for 2009-2010 Academic Year: Scott Boss, Angela Garcia and Axel Seemann
External Research Fellows: Massimiliano Cappuccio, Laura McNamee and Victor Lo
The Valente Center for Arts and Sciences at Bentley University announces research fellows for the 2009-2010 academic year, including three Bentley faculty fellows and three external research fellows. Working on research related to this year's theme, "Behaving Ourselves: Motivation and Agency Across the Disciplines," are Bentley faculty members Scott Boss, assistant professor of accountancy; Angela Garcia, associate professor and chair of sociology; and Axel Seemann, assistant professor of philosophy; and external postdoctoral fellow Massimiliano Cappuccio, a visiting researcher at the University of Stirling in Scotland.
"In recent decades, evolutionary biologists, neuroscientists, behavioral psychologists, and economists have transformed our understanding of the motives that drive human beings to act," says Chris Beneke, director of the Valente Center. "This year's theme is designed to raise broad and fundamental questions about why we behave the way we do, what motivates us, and how free we are to make our own choices. There are important lessons to be learned and shared on these subjects between fellows, students, alumni and faculty, in both business and the arts and sciences."
Through a grant from the National Biomedical Research Foundation, a second external postdoctoral fellow, Laura McNamee, will work with Fred Ledley, Bentley professor and chair of natural and applied sciences, on the interaction of technology and business models in the biotechnology industry. Additionally, Victor Lo, visiting research fellow and vice president at Fidelity Investments, will work with Bentley Professor of Mathematical Sciences Dominique Haughton to organize a virtual analytics seminar hosted by Bentley.
An outline of research topics from Bentley faculty includes:
Scott Boss, "Attitudinal Motivation for Security Behaviors"
Boss pursues research on various aspects of information security where the individual is historically the "weakest link" within the organization. The goals of the proposed research are to theoretically and empirically examine individual attitudes as a predictor of individual security behaviors and the sources of those attitudes. Findings will additionally attempt to address questions regarding whether individuals can be motivated to behave in a more "cyber-secure" manner.
Angela Garcia, "Creating a Cardboard World: The Collaborative Construction of Motivation and Agency in the Completion of Jigsaw Puzzles"
Garcia's project is an investigation of motivation and agency in the performance of work tasks, using the activity of completing jigsaw puzzles to demonstrate how individuals and small groups use the integrated accomplishment of action, thought, memory, emotion and interaction. According to Garcia, the sources of motivation are located in the situated action the individuals participate in, leading to the development of a theory of "micro-motivation." The project uses the analytic framework of ethnomethodology and workplace studies, and involves the collection and analysis of auto-ethnographic, observational, digital video recordings and interview data.
Axel Seemann, "The Social Mind: Intersubjectivity and Joint Engagement"
According to Seemann, after years of treating humans as solitary characters who process sensory information and produce behavioral output, philosophers of the mind have begun to take seriously the social dimension of people's mental lives, and consequently our interactions with each other - partly because of groundbreaking work in developmental psychology and social neuroscience. His research will explore a number of issues that arise in this context - such as joint attention, collective intentionality and collective action - that will contribute to a book project. In October, he will also host a major international conference on joint attention, funded by the National Science Foundation (http://www.bentley.edu/joint-attention/).
Research from external research fellows includes:
Massimiliano Cappuccio's work aims to deepen the embodied framework of analytical philosophy of mind, its convergence with the phenomenological tradition, and its applications to cognitive neurosciences. At Bentley, he will focus on the cognitive processes underlying the understanding and the prediction of the other's goals in hierarchically organized motor-chains. He will reference the social deficits of autistic subjects, through which he expects to provide an original theory of decision by relying on the concepts of motor intentionality and embodied simulation. Cappuccio earned a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Pavia (Italy).
Victor Lo will work with Dominique Haughton, Bentley professor of mathematical sciences, to organize a virtual analytics seminar hosted by Bentley. He has 15 years of extensive quantitative and consulting experience in applying business analytics, supporting areas such as Database Marketing, Media Mix, Market Research, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Brand Equity, Pricing, Human Resource Analytics, and Risk Management. Before moving into the corporate world, Lo held a postdoctoral fellowship in the Management Science Division of the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia.
Laura McNamee will work with Fred Ledley, Bentley professor and chair of natural and applied sciences, to study the path by which the biotechnology industry builds on scientific discovery to develop products for public benefit. Of particular importance is an integrated analysis of development-stage technologies, biotechnology business models, and patterns of capital investment to identify ways to improve the efficiency of bringing new products to consumers and clinical practice. McNamee has a PhD in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worchester.
BENTLEY UNIVERSITY is a leader in business education. Centered on teaching and research in business and related professions, Bentley blends the breadth and technological strength of a university with the core values and student focus of a close-knit campus. Our undergraduate curriculum combines business study with a strong foundation in the arts and sciences. The McCallum Graduate School emphasizes the impact of technology on business practice, in offerings that include MBA and Master of Science programs, PhD programs in accountancy and in business, and custom executive education programs. Located minutes from Boston in Waltham, Massachusetts, the school enrolls approximately 4,000 full-time undergraduate, 250 adult part-time undergraduate, 1,400 graduate, and 30 doctoral students. Bentley is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges; AACSB International – The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business; and the European Quality Improvement System (EQUIS), which benchmarks quality in management and business education.
