Jasmine H Shi

Jasmine Huijie Shi is a third-year doctoral student at Michigan State University’s School of Human Resources and Labor Relations. Originally from China, she completed her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology at Queen’s University in Canada, followed by a Master’s in Social-Organizational Psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research centers on leadership development, followership, and self-concept, where she seeks to deepen understanding of the dynamics between leaders and followers.

Siyi Tao

Siyi Tao is a PhD candidate at the University of Illinois Chicago and an incoming Assistant Professor at the Gary W. Rollins College of Business at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. His research focuses on leadership, careers, and personality, with current projects exploring the career progression of leaders.

Nan Guo

Nan Guo is a Ph.D. candidate in International Management Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas, studying Organizational Behavior. Her research contributes to resilience and crisis management. She explores this unique phenomenon through research on death awareness and proactivity amidst crises, the dynamics of supervisor-subordinate relationships, and the impact of human resource practices and systems with an emphasis on contextual factors. Her work has been published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, and the International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality. Nan’s research will explore the emotional side of servant leadership, and whether this approach makes team members feel more energized, and/or perform better under pressure.

Yue Wang

Yue Wang is a PhD student in the College of Business Administration at the University of Illinois Chicago, studying Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management. She received her master’s degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses on leader-follower relationships, workaholism, and employee well-being. Yue will continue to explore this work with her research grant.

Sherrica Senewiratne

Sherrica Senewiratne is an Organizational Psychologist, and PhD candidate at Swinburne University, Melbourne, Australia. Sherrica’s avid interest in servant leadership arose from her experiences in dealing with leaders who exhibit various leadership styles, which triggered an interest in investigating servant leadership and its impact on followers. Specifically, she is interested in servant leader well-being, with an emphasis on personal resources that can help to avoid feelings of depletion in servant leaders. This is the primary focus of her PhD studies, which she hopes will encourage further study around leader-specific outcomes that leads to greater awareness around resources that help leaders to cope during stressful situations. Sherrica believes leader well-being is an important area of research to ensure leaders are bringing their best selves to work and encouraging followers to do the same.

Alex Effinger

Alex Effinger is a PhD candidate studying Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). His research interests include servant leadership, leader-follower relations, and ethics. The Greenleaf Scholars award will support his research on follower outcomes related to servant leadership. Specifically, his current research draws on Social Exchange Theory and Attribution Theory to investigate whether followers who emulate their leader’s servant behaviors are regarded with appreciation or animus by their peers.

Jingyu Zhang

Jingyu Zhang is a Ph.D. candidate in Organizational Behavior and Human Resources Management at the University of Illinois Chicago. Her research focuses on examining how leader interactions (both with romantic partners and followers) influence leadership styles (e.g., servant leadership), leader identity, and leader behaviors at work. Jingyu’s research has appeared in journals and conferences such as the Journal of Applied Psychology and the Academy of Management Annual Meeting.

Dr. Dung Tran, Gonzaga University

Dung Q. Tran, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor for the M.A. in Organizational Leadership program at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, U.S.A. Working at the nexus of organizational leadership and the Catholic, Jesuit, and humanistic educational traditions, Professor Tran is interested in how spiritual, ethical, and values-based perspectives shape leader identity development and leadership theory and practice. Dr. Tran is second editor of Servant-Leadership and Forgiveness: How Leaders Help Heal the Heart of the World (SUNY Press, 2020). He is also a contributing author or co-author of book chapters in The Routledge Companion to Leadership and Change (Routledge, 2023); Perceptions of East Asian and Asian North American Athletics (Palgrave, 2022); Reimagining Leadership on the Commons: Shifting the Paradigm for a More Ethical, Equitable, and Just World (Emerald, 2021); The Palgrave Handbook of Workplace Well-Being (Palgrave, 2021); The Routledge Companion to Mindfulness at Work (Routledge, 2021); New Horizons in Positive Leadership and Change: A Practical Guide for Workplace Transformation (Springer, 2020); Evolving Leadership for Collective Wellbeing: Lessons for Implementing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (Emerald, 2019); The Palgrave Handbook of Workplace Spirituality and Fulfillment (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018); and Breaking the Zero-Sum Game: Transforming Societies Through Inclusive Leadership (Emerald, 2017).

Kell Anderson, Gonzaga University

Kell Anderson is a Ph.D. candidate in Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University. As a former Army officer, he is drawn to studying various leadership theories. His interests include exploring the impact of philosophy on research methodology. His dissertation work explores the use of Bayesian structural equation modeling within a critical realist philosophical paradigm.

Dr. Caleb Lugar, University of Mississippi
Dr. Caleb Lugar earned his Ph.D from the University of Mississippi in the School of Business Administration. Dr. Lugar’s research is focused on the concept of Servant Leadership within the domain of self-initiated expatriation. The term “self-initiated expatriate” refers to foreign nationals who willingly self-initiate an international change in their dominant place of residence for the purpose of work. Dr. Lugar will draw upon the conservation of resource theory and research on organizational identification in order to theorize and empirically examine the influence of servant leadership on the turnover intentions of self-initiated expatriates.

Karryna Madison, Monash University
Karryna is a doctoral candidate and leadership educator in the Department of Management at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. Her research revolves around Greenleaf’s notion that the followers of a servant-leader are more likely to become servants themselves. In doing so, Karryna hopes to provide theoretical clarity to understand how servant-leaders influence their followers. This study determines whether servant-leaders influence their followers to emulate or reciprocate their behaviors by examining the theories of social learning and social exchange.

Dr. Hye Park, Governors State University
Dr. Hailey Park is an Assistant Professor of Management at Governors State University. She received her Ph.D. in Human Resource Management and Organizational Behavior from the Fox School of Business at Temple University. Dr. Park’s research explores the actor-centric approach to daily servant-leader behaviors. Dr. Park will utilize the engagement theory and the Work-Home Resource model to support the focus of her research. Dr. Park hopes to distinguish what happens to leaders over time by illuminating the servant leadership behaviors that fluctuate within an individual over time and eventually influence the leaders’ perceptions and behaviors as a result.

Shuxia Zhang, The Ohio State University
Shuxia is a Ph.D. candidate at The Ohio State University. She seeks to provide contemporary understandings of two areas of research: positive leadership behaviors and subjective well-being. Within her research, Zhang will be examining when and how follower unethical behaviors lead to Servant Leadership. Her research hopes to uncover what factors may promote servant-leader behaviors, and to highlight servant-leader behaviors as more constructive responses to team unethical behaviors.

BRITANNY BUIS–UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO

Brittany is a Ph.D. candidate in Business Administration at the University of Illinois at Chicago . Her research is focused on early influences that shape engagement in servant leadership. Brittany will be examining how drivers related to one’s upbringing influence the development of behaviors and values commensurate with servant leadership. Her research will draw upon theories of social learning and self-determination. Brittany hopes to offer ways in which these factors contribute to the propensity to engage in servant leadership behaviors.

DR. HAMED GHAHREMANI–UNIVERSITY OF NEW ORLEANS

Dr. Ghahremani is the Assistant Professor of Management and Marketing at the University of New Orleans and will examine how servant leaders can inspire their followers to create value for the community while enhancing their perseverance. Drawing from the appraisal theory of emotion, Dr. Ghahremani will examine the leader-oriented effect followers as a mechanism for linking the community-oriented values of servant leaders to the outcomes of followers.

DR. ANNE M. “MARNIE” RORHOLM–GONZAGA UNIVERSITY

The goal of Dr. Roholm’s study is to examine the influence of interruptive symbology in servant leadership. Interruptive symbology is a phenomenon by which an individual is influenced by a visual image or symbol, and as a result of the observation, engages in sense and meaning-making of the symbol, comes to an epiphany, and chooses to intentionally act for the betterment of humanity.

JENNIFER SMALLWOOD-HOLMES–INDIANA-WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY

Jennifer is a Ph.D. candidate in Organizational Leadership. Her research will revolve around leadership in early childhood programs, including how such leadership affects teachers, children, and program quality. She is also interested in understanding how servant leadership influences teachers’ perceptions of psychosocial safety climate in licensed early learning programs. Psychosocial safety climate is a construct that reflects staff perceptions of both leaders’ values and beliefs.

JIAQING SUN–UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO

Jiaqing is a Ph.D. candidate in Organizational Behavior and Human Resources Management. Her research will focus on how comparative thinking acts a critical role in subordinates’ reactions to servant leadership behaviors exhibited by their leaders.

HOWIE XU–UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO

Howie is a Ph.D. candidate in Organizational Behavior and Human Resources Management and aspires to utilize research efforts to encourage practitioners to adopt the philosophy of servant leadership. His research will draw on social learning theory, social exchange theory, and identity theory.

Arjun Mitra

Arjun Mitra is a PhD candidate in Business Administration at University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). His research is motivated by an interest in attraction, selection, and attrition of minorities in corporate boards and top management teams; individual, leader, and organizational responses to employees with stigmas; and intersection of technology and management science. In his dissertation, he is using survey data from multiple universities and corporate networks, to examine the relationship dynamics between stigmatized employees and their allies, and the role of servant leaders in motivating individuals to engage as allies to their stigmatized coworkers.
With interests bridging micro and macro organizational research, Arjun uses advanced research methods for his research. Arjun has won numerous accolades for his research. He has received the Outstanding Author Contribution award from Emerald Group and has been nominated for best paper awards in prestigious management conferences along with being interviewed by New York Post for his research. He also received awards from the President of University of Illinois system and the Consul General of India for academic excellence. Arjun has won multiple outstanding reviewer awards across prestigious global management conferences such as
Academy of Management and Midwest Academy of Management. Arjun is also a Management Instructor at UIC and has taught courses such as HRM and Organizational Theory. He has consistently received the highest teaching evaluation in his department for outstanding teaching. Arjun has been inducted into The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi for his academic achievements.

Link to website: https://business.uic.edu/profiles/arjun-mitra/

Ui Young Sun

Ui Young Sun is a current Ph.D. student in the OB/HR Ph.D. program at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Before joining UIC, he worked as a financial analyst in LG CNS for three years and a senior manager in Baekhyangmok education for one year in South Korea. He obtained his undergraduate degree in Economics at London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE, London, UK) and earned his master’s degree in Business Administration, with a specialization in Organizational Behavior, at Seoul National University (Seoul, South Korea). He was strongly attracted to UIC because of his interest in servant leadership and Professor Robert C. Liden’s strong expertise in this research field. Currently, his main research interest lies in exploring how servant leaders differentiate between their followers in terms of providing their support for their followers. He is currently working with Professor Liden for this project. He is also actively collaborating with Professor John Lynch, Professor Don Kluemper, Professor Sandy Wayne, and other current students of the OB/HR PhD program at UIC. His past works have been accepted for the presentation at the AOM (Academy of Management) and SIOP (Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology) annual conference for a number of times.

Chandra Shekhar Pathki

Chandra is a PhD student in Organizational Behavior and Human Resources in the Department of Managerial Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He worked as a research associate in OB/HRM at Indian School of Business (ISB) for 3 years. During this time, he gained several insights on how employees engage in behaviors that are counterproductive to their organizations, which led him to work on understanding deviance at workplace. He also developed interest in understanding constructive behaviors of employees that help organizations but requires deviating from organizational norms. His experiences and observations at workplace taught him the importance of leadership on employee outcomes, which led him to systematically understand both constructive and destructive leadership behaviors and their impact on employee voice at the workplace.

Pallavi Awasthi

I am Pallavi, currently a third-year doctoral candidate in public administration at Florida International University, Miami. My roots are accredited to a small village in Northern India, where huge educational disparities and ignorance exist to educate a girl child, I have indeed come a long way to present my thoughts. My mother’s profile was of a teacher in a rural primary school, and it was her foremost priority to educate her daughters despite the prevailing scarcity of adequate infrastructure and resources at the time. My identity both scholastic and feminine took shape during those formative years of life. I realized the importance of education as a transforming tool to shape and uplift societies, specifically, the critical role of a woman in founding and developing societies. My interest of intrigue was always to contribute and engage on issues which have a substantial positive impact on people’s lives.
In my previous public service work in India, I was involved with UNDP-Government of India project on Leadership Development in Indian Public Service. It was during this time; I got an opportunity to write a research paper on “An Agenda for Servant Leadership Culture in Indian Public Service, which currently relates to my doctoral dissertation research on Servant Leadership in Local Governments in the United States. The interest in pursuing an academic career in Public Administration field stems from my previous research and teaching experience in India. Also, reading a couple of outstanding books viz. “How to Change the World – Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas” (Bornstein, 2004) and “The End of Poverty – How Can we Make it Happen in our Life Time” (Sachs, 2005), left an indelible impression to chose servant leadership as my dissertation research topic.
The Greenleaf Scholars program comes to me as an opportunity to network with renowned scholars in the Servant Leadership field. It will give an exposure to the cutting-edge research and practice on servant leadership. Besides, it would shape up my motivation and serve as an impetuous source in my scholarly endeavors in the field of servant leadership. Post my doctoral studies, I intend to establish a public service leadership research center in India. The center will be driven by the vision to integrate the wisdom of East and West in servant leadership development.

Chenwei Liao

Dr. Chenwei Liao is Assistant Professor in Michigan State University’s School of Human Resources and Labor Relations. He received his Ph.D. degree from University of Illinois at Chicago. Interested in the phenomena around leaders and followers, Dr. Liao conducts two streams of research. In one, he considers how leadership styles (e.g., servant leadership) and leader-follower relationships influence team dynamics and individual outcomes. In the other stream, he examines the role of work arrangements negotiated between leaders and followers (i.e., idiosyncratic deals) in shaping employee and team outcomes. Dr. Liao’s research has appeared in journals such as Academy of Management Journal, Leadership Quarterly, Journal of Organizational Behavior, and Human Resource Management Review.

Chandra Shekhar Pathki
Chandra is a PhD student in Organizational Behavior and Human Resources in the Department of Managerial Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He worked as a research associate in OB/HRM at Indian School of Business (ISB) for 3 years. During this time, he gained several insights on how employees engage in behaviors that are counterproductive to their organizations, which led him to work on understanding deviance at workplace. He also developed interest in understanding constructive behaviors of employees that help organizations but requires deviating from organizational norms. His experiences and observations at workplace taught him the importance of leadership on employee outcomes, which led him to systematically understand both constructive and destructive leadership behaviors and their impact on employee outcomes within and beyond the workplace.

Jarvis Smallfield

Jarvis Smallfield was born and raised on a small farm in rural Minnesota. After completing a bachelor’s degree in the Integrated Science Program at Northwestern University, he began a career in information technology focusing on web-based software development. During that time he worked in the chemical and manufacturing industries, a large hospital system, and for software consulting companies. His interest in business environments in general and the impact of leadership on employee thriving in particular grew through membership on and leadership of a variety of project teams including cross-industry and international.

Jarvis was more formally introduced to the study of organizational behavior while earning an MBA degree at Clemson University and became interested in research into the influence of leadership on follower and resulting organizational outcomes. He has subsequently joined the OB/HRM doctoral program at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) because of the department’s commitment to leadership, especially relational leadership, and in particular its prominent role in servant leadership scholarship. Jarvis is now a PhD candidate entering his final year of the program developing a research stream centered on servant leadership and focusing on the influences on followers of both leadership and the team environment. He is leading research projects with UIC faculty, fellow doctoral students, and other scholars in the field as well as contributing proactively to improving the environment of the doctoral program and contributing to the success of more junior students. Jarvis is excited to use this experience to move into a long and productive career researching on the topic of servant leadership and sharing that research with students and practitioners.”

Jiaqing Sun

Jiaqing Sun is a doctoral candidate in Organizational Behavior and Human Resources at the Department of Managerial Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Prior to joining in the doctoral program in UIC, she had received her B.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Social Psychology from Beijing Normal University (in China). Her current research interests primarily focus on leadership phenomena, especially the topics of leader-member exchange, servant leadership, and dual leadership. She adopts the perspective of emotions and attributions—a crucial dual process in the human mind—to understand the complex outcomes of leader-follower dyadic interactions. Supported by Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, she conducted a study exploring employees’ attributions and gratitude toward servant leaders. This study was presented at the Third International Symposium on Attribution Theory.

Junfeng Wu

Junfeng Wu is an Assistant Professor of Management at the Naveen Jindal School of Management, the University of Texas at Dallas. He received his B.A. and M.A. degrees, both in management, from the Renmin University of China and his Ph.D. in Business Administration from the University of Illinois at Chicago. His research interests include leadership with a focus on servant leadership, antecedents and outcomes of creativity in the workplace, and multilevel research in work teams. His research in the above areas has appeared in the Journal of Applied Psychology and the Leadership Quarterly, among others. His most recent research investigated the dynamic effects of servant leadership and the effectiveness of servant leadership in work teams.

Haoying Xu

Haoying (Howie) Xu is a current Ph.D. student in the OB/HR Ph.D. program at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Before joining UIC, Howie completed his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in management, with a specialization in Human Resource Management, in the Business School at the Central University of Finance and Economics (located in Beijing, China). He learned the concept of servant leadership and was deeply attracted by it when he was an undergraduate student. Since 2014, he has been working with his Chinese supervisor, Professor Zhen Wang, on several servant leadership projects. For example, they investigated the trickle down process of servant leadership—a core tenet of servant leadership theory as proposed by Greenleaf, illustrating how and when higher managers’ servant leadership influences supervisors’ servant leadership, with a subsequent effect on frontline employees’ service performance. Later, Howie went to the Business School at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and worked as a research assistant in the Department of Management. He worked with Professor Dora C. Lau on a project on trust, which is a research topic closely related to servant leadership. His research experience accumulated over the last four years lays a solid foundation for his Ph.D. study and career development as a researcher.

Howie was attracted to UIC because of his intense interest in servant leadership and Professor Robert C. Liden’s strong expertise in this research field. Currently, his major research interests are servant leadership, leader-member exchange (LMX), employee volunteering, and team dynamics. His work on servant leadership or other related topics (e.g., ethical leadership) has been published in the Human Relations and the Journal of Business Ethics journals, as well as accepted for presentation at the previous and upcoming Academy of Management annual meeting. Beyond these publications and conference papers, Howie is now working with Professor Liden on several servant leadership projects. For example, one of their projects investigates the implications of servant leadership for leaders, presenting a comprehensive understanding of what impacts servant leadership has on leaders, and explicating why, how and when the impacts occur. Besides, Howie also has active collaborations with Professor Sandy Wayne, Professor Don Kluemper, Professor John Lynch, and several current students and graduates—e.g., Jia (Jasmine) Hu—of the OB/HR PhD program at UIC – many of these involve servant leadership.

Being a scholar loyal to servant leadership research, Howie tries to be a serving person in daily life as well. Howie is always available to help current Ph.D. students in the program with statistics and data analysis (e.g., multilevel modeling, polynomial regression). He has also volunteered to show the new Ph.D. students around the campus, introduce to them the Ph.D. life at UIC, the surroundings of UIC, the housing, and so forth. He is very happy when others’ difficulties in life and study get addressed with his help and serving. Engaging in servant practices, Howie has a more thorough understanding of the concept of servant leadership; and it, in turn, makes him more interested in and devoted to servant leadership research. Howie hopes that through his and other scholars’ research efforts, servant leadership theory can be developed in a more complete way, followed by more and more practitioners advocating this leadership style in organizations.

Sungil “Calvin” Chung

Sungil “Calvin” Chung is born and raised in South Korea until his family moved to the Philippines when he was a middle school student. From then, he was able to explore different cultures from various countries all around the world. He holds a bachelor’s degree in both Business Management and English and an MBA. For his career, Sungil had various sectoral experiences (military, government and nonprofit). He had a career as a project manager in Korean government agency that dealt with a national project called Free Economic Zone. He also holds Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School prior to his current Ph.D program. Currently, he successfully defended his dissertation at James Madison University (JMU) from the School of Strategic Leadership Studies. The title of Sungil’s dissertation is “Cultural Influences on Nonprofit Servant Leadership”. He received a doctoral assistantship from JMU supporting his doctoral studies in nonprofit leadership while advising Hart School of Hospitality, Sport and Recreation Management undergraduate students. His research interest includes leadership theories and values, nonprofit leadership/management, cross-cultural leadership/management, management/international management and social entrepreneurship. He has presented papers at several conferences in various topics. He is a member of International Leadership Association and Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action.

Hamed Ghahremani

Hamed Ghahremani is originally from Tehran, Iran. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and a MBA. Hamed had a career in financial consulting and private portfolio management. He has also been part of two start-up teams in launching two businesses. Currently, he is a third-year doctoral student at University at Buffalo (UB) School of Management. Hamed received a scholarship from UB School of Management supporting his doctoral studies in Organizational Behavior. His research interest includes leadership, followership, and social networks. The title of Hamed’s research project is “Servant Leadership with Non-Servants: How Can Servant Leaders Effectively Interact with Disagreeable Followers?”

Jeremy Meuser
Jeremy D. Meuser was born and raised in the Detroit suburbs. After completing a bachelors’ in computer engineering at the University of Michigan’s College of Engineering, Ann Arbor, he began a career in information technology (IT), which followed from 3 successful internships at Fortune 500 IT companies. He was the director of IT for the Orchard Lake Schools, taught high school and college level IT industry certification courses, and was a founding partner for an IT limited liability corporation in the State of Michigan. He was exposed to Organizational Behavior (OB) through a class at Wayne State University, and worked on course staff for the 7 subsequent semesters. This experience shifted his focus from machines in the organization to the people who comprise the organization. After completing a certificate in spirituality from Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska, and a degree in philosophy and 3 years of the program of priestly formation at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, Detroit, MI, he discerned to devote his life to the study of the impact of leadership on individuals in organizations. Jeremy was attracted to the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) because of Dr. Robert C. Liden’s career investigating leader‐member exchange (LMX) and his more recent interest in servant leadership. Industry experience and reflection during study at Sacred Heart Major Seminary motivated a genuine concern for the well‐being of the individual in the workplace, and a belief that the leader can be a source of positive experiences that contribute to that well‐being. Jeremy was a proactive research contributor in the OB/HR PhD program at UIC, where he completed his PhD in 2016. Jeremy’s research program focuses on leadership and the impact of leadership upon the individuals who experience it. Servant leadership, differential leader treatment (leader‐member exchange and idiosyncratic deals), and employee identification are his primary areas of interest. His work on servant leadership has been published in the Academy of Management Journal, The Leadership Quarterly, and The Oxford Handbook of Leadership in Organizations. While at UIC, Jeremy has taught courses in leadership, leadership development, introduction to business, organizational behavior, organizational theory, and global business. Servant leadership is more than a research subject, but rather a lifestyle for Jeremy. He served the
department at UIC through the formation and leadership of a subject pool – a process that required years of planning. The subject pool has been an asset to the department: over 18 studies have been run with over 1000 participants in only a year of operation alone. Further, Jeremy has presented to the department on statistical methods, journal article writing, has volunteered to lead doctoral seminars, and often contributes his experience as a senior student to the younger students. He has active collaborations with Bob Liden, Sandy Wayne, Don Kluemper, and several current students and graduates of the management PhD program at UIC – many of these involve servant leadership. Jeremy looks
forward to a long and fruitful career researching and presenting on the topic of servant leadership.

Matt Robinson

Matt Robinson is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Health and Human Performance at Baylor University with a degree emphasis in the area of sport pedagogy/sport management. Prior to attending Baylor, Matt garnered sixteen years of experience coaching American football at the collegiate and high school level. During fifteen years at the collegiate level, Matt coached in thirty-five NCAA national playoff games, and led teams to 11 conference championships, the 1998 NCAA division II National Championship, and the 2004 NCAA Division III National Runner-up. While coaching, Matt mentored many young people in the ways of servant leadership believing servant leadership to have an important place in sport and life.
Matt made his first academic presentation on servant leadership at the Inaugural Global Congress for Sport and Christianity 2016 in York, England which was attended by delegates from around the world. The presentation was titled “Servant Leadership in Coaching: Toward a Practical Understanding”. He followed with presentations at the conference of the Texas Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance in Galveston, TX and the Applied Sport Management Conference in Baton Rouge, LA. In the presentations, Matt presented the concept of servant leadership and suggested practices for teaching undergraduate and graduate students in sport pedagogy and sport management how to develop servant leadership qualities.
Recently, Matt submitted an educational review on servant leadership in sport to the Sport Management Education Journal. The manuscript has been reviewed, is currently undergoing minor revisions, and will hopefully be published within the next year. In the manuscript, the author offers an explanation of servant leadership and a timeline of servant leadership research. Additionally, an original model is presented for the purposes of understanding servant leadership dynamics in sport and recommendations for teaching activities are provided.
Matt and his wife, Michelle, celebrated their 20th anniversary last year. They have two beautiful children, Will (12 years) and Delia (7 years). As an advocate for servant leadership, Matt is hopeful that an increase in empirical attention on servant leadership in the area of sport will bring to light its many benefits and that servant leadership might become more widely accepted as a viable and effective model of which sport managers and coaches should be aware and utilize.

Jiaqing Sun

Jiaqing Sun is a doctoral student in Organizational Behavior and Human Resources at the Department of Managerial Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Prior to joining in the doctoral program in UIC, she had received her B.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Social Psychology from Beijing Normal University (in China). Her current research interests include: servant leadership, leader-member exchange theory, leader ethical behaviors, affect theory, and attribution theory.

NATHAN EVA

Nathan is currently a Lecturer at the Monash Business School in the Department of Management. He completed his Ph.D. in 2014 from Monash University, after previously completing a Bachelor of Business (Honors) in Management and a Bachelor of Arts (Politics/Drama). His Ph.D. dissertation focused on the role that organizational structure and the leader’s decision-making process has over the relationship between servant leadership and follower attitudes; while his Honors dissertation examined servant leadership development in secondary colleges in Australia.

This research draws from the social cognitive and leadership developmental readiness theories to examine the positive and negative personality antecedents of servant leadership and the role that leader developmental readiness plays in moderating this relationship.

CHAD HARTNELL

Chad is an assistant professor in Managerial Studies at Georgia State University and completed his Ph.D. in May 2012 at the University of Arizona. Dr. Hartnell’s research focuses on leadership and organizational culture, how they interrelate, and the intervening mechanisms through which they influence organizational, unit, and individual effectiveness.

His proposal for this study is to integrate extant models of servant leadership with insights from social identity theory, Chad will develop and test a cross-level model that identifies antecedents to servant leadership behavior and illuminates processes through which servant leaders transform followers into servant leaders themselves.

RICHARD IRON CLOUD

Richard Iron Cloud is currently employed as the Director of Graduate Studies at Oglala Lakota College. He received his BA from Fort Lewis College in Durango CO and his MA from Oglala Lakota College. He is currently working on his dissertation for a PhD in Psychology from Walden University.   His eclectic career has been mostly in the human services. He is also an Instructor at Oglala Lakota College and a volunteer Peace Maker for the Oglala Sioux Tribal Court System.

His research will establish the relationship between acculturation and leadership style among graduates of the Oglala Lokota Leadership Program. This study is pursued as a direct response to a grievance made by an elder of the community and concern that the college has failed to assure that students and graduates understand the importance traditional culture plays in self-preservation and community leadership.

JEREMY D. MEUSER

Jeremy D. Meuser was born and raised in the Detroit suburbs. After completing a bachelors’ in computer engineering at the University of Michigan’s College of Engineering, Ann Arbor, he began a career in information technology (IT), which followed from 3 successful internships at Fortune 500 IT companies. He was the director of IT for the Orchard Lake Schools, taught high school and college level IT industry certification courses, and was a founding partner for an IT limited liability corporation in the State of Michigan. He was exposed to Organizational Behavior (OB) through a class at Wayne State University, and worked on course staff for the 7 subsequent semesters. This experience shifted his focus from machines in the organization to the people who comprise the organization. After completing a certificate in spirituality from Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska, and a degree in philosophy and 3 years of the program of priestly formation at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, Detroit, MI, he discerned to devote his life to the study of the impact of leadership on individuals in organizations.

Jeremy has been a proactive research contributor in the OB/HR PhD program at UIC. Now a PhD candidate in his final year, Jeremy’s research program focuses on leadership and the impact of leadership upon the individuals who experience it. Servant leadership, differential leader treatment (leader-member exchange and idiosyncratic deals), and employee identification are his primary areas of interest. His work on servant leadership has been published in the Academy of Management Journal, The Leadership Quarterly, and The Oxford Handbook of Leadership in Organizations.

TYREE D. MITCHELL

Tyree Mitchell is currently a fifth-year doctoral candidate in the Industrial/Organizational psychology program at DePaul University. Beginning in the fall of 2016, Tyree will be starting a new academic position as an assistant professor at Louisiana State University, specifically within the School of Human Resource Education and Workforce Development (SHREWD). His primary research interests are in organizational leadership and work teams.

This research will examine the effects of several individual differences (core self-evaluation [CSE], emotional intelligence [EL], extraversion and agreeableness) and their interactive effects (EL and agreeableness, CSE and agreeableness) on servant leadership behaviors. Further, need for affiliation is hypothesized to mediate the agreeableness-servant leadership relationship and need for power is hypothesized to mediate the extraversion-servant leadership relationship. Data will be collected from managers and subordinates from two different organizations. This research also attempts to provide additional construct validity evidence for servant leadership behavior by examining the differing effects of these antecedents on related leadership behaviors (transformational and ethical leadership).

JUNFENG WU

Junfeng Wu is a Ph.D. candidate in Organizational Behavior and Human Resources at the Department of Managerial Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago. He received his B.A. in Business Administration and his M.A. in Business Management from the School of Business at Renmin University of China. His current research interests include: servant leadership, employee creativity and multilevel phenomena and interpersonal processes in workgroups.

Perspective taking is a cognitive process in which one considers another’s viewpoint or generally sees the world through another’s vantage point. Drawing upon theory and research on perspective taking, Mr. Wu’s dissertation seeks to understand how and when servant leadership affects group creativity. Specifically, he posits that servant leadership fosters group perspective taking, meaning that within a work group, group members consider or adopt their coworkers’ viewpoints. He seeks to develop and test the idea that group perspective taking is a double-edged sword for group creativity, at the surface level, offering positive impact by improving group coordination; while at the underlying level, engendering group perspective convergence. Theoretical boundary conditions for the aforementioned relationships are examined. Mr. Wu will defend his dissertation in March 2017.

BIRNA DRÖFN BIRGISDÓTTIR
Birna is a PhD student in the business department at Reykjavik University in Iceland. For her doctoral thesis she has been researching frameworks for creativity since 2012. She received her masters’ degree in International Business from Griffith University in Australia and her bachelor degree in Business Administration from Reykjavik University. Birna has also studied human resource management, Neuro linguistic programming (NLP) and executive coaching.

SETH MARTINEZ
Seth Martinez is originally from San Jose, CA. He completed a bachelor’s degree at Brigham Young University-Idaho. In 2010, Martinez earned a master’s degree at Brigham Young University. Currently, he is a fourth-year doctoral student in the Instructional Systems Technology program at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. As a doctoral student, Seth spent two years as the co-chair for a conference (IST Conference 2012 & 2013) hosted by the Instructional Systems Technology department of the School of Education at IU. Within the IST program, his academic concentration is centered around organizational learning and performance. Martinez is directing his focus toward research activities in leadership development.

XIAOYUN CAO
The title of Xiaoyun Cao’s research project is “Managerial Decisions on Customized Work Arrangements – An Investigation of Who and What Servant Leaders Prioritize.” She will be conducting her research with Dr. Robert C. Liden at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).

NATHAN KLEIN
The title of Klein’s research project is “The Positive Impact that Servant-Leaders Have on Employee Engagement: The Mediating Roles of Trust and Fit Perceptions.” He will be conducting his research with Drs. Todd Darnold and Donna Ehrlich at Creighton University.

ERIC MICHEL
The title of Michel’s research project is “The Paradox of Servant Leadership and the Work-Family Interface.” He will be conducting his research with Dr. Sandy J. Wayne at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).

ARMIN PIRCHER VERDORFER
The title of Pircher Verdorfer’s research project is “Mindfulness and Servant Leadership: An Empirical Investigation of Mediating Mechanisms” He will be conducting his research at Technische Universität München (TUM) in Germany.

KAIFENG JIANG
Kaifeng Jiang is a fifth-year doctoral candidate of School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University. His primary research interests focus on the effects of human resource management practices on employee, team, and organizational outcomes. Related interests include leadership, work teams, organizational climate, employee engagement, and employee turnover. Jiang recently became an Assistant Professor of Department of Management of Mendoza College of Business at University of Notre Dame. The title of Jiang’s research project is “Mangers’ Role in Shaping Employees’ Perceptions of Human Resource Management Practices.”

G. JAMES LEMOINE, JR.
G. James Lemoine, Jr., is a fourth-year doctoral candidate studying organizational behavior at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His research interests include leadership, followership, motivation, citizenship, and individual differences. James holds a Dean’s Fellowship supporting his doctoral studies at Georgia Tech. He was named one of the Faculty of the Year (2012-2013) recipients at Georgia Tech’s Scheller College of Business, as the Teaching PhD Candidate of the Year. The title of Lemoine’s research project is “An Impact Beyond the Team: The Cross-level and Extra-organizational Effects of Servant Leadership.”

MULYADI ROBIN
Mulyadi Robin is a final year PhD candidate in the Department of Management, Faculty of Business and Economics, Monash University. Robin is currently a recipient of the Monash University Faculty Postgraduate Research Scholarship, and previously was the recipient of Monash University Honours Bursary and Teaching Scholarship, as well as the Monash University Thesis Publication Scholarship. Mulyadi is also currently an experienced Teaching Associate at Monash University, having lectured and tutored undergraduate subjects across three different Monash Campuses (Caulfield, Clayton, and Berwick). The title of Robin’s research project is “Leadership, Engagement, and Workplace Behavior.”

KAROLINE EVANS
Karoline Evans is a Ph.D. student at Washington University in St. Louis where she is completing her degree in organizational behavior. She has particular interest in leadership and team innovation and is currently researching how organizations can use leader and culture development to affect the personal and professional lives of their employees. She also investigates the role of social networks in team and individual innovation. She completed a bachelor’s in chemical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Before pursuing a doctoral degree, Karoline had a career in research and development at a large consulting firm where she specialized in technology strategy and innovation management. She will be conducting research with Markus Baer of Washington University in St. Louis and Christopher Long of Georgetown University on “The Effects of Employee Training in Servant Leadership on Follower Growth, Empowerment, and Performance.”

CHENWEI LIAO
Chenwei Liao was born and raised in China. After completing a bachelor’s degree in sociology at Renmin University of China in Beijing, he came to the United States and obtained his master’s degree in industrial and organizational psychology from Illinois Institute of Technology. He is now pursuing a doctoral degree in organizational behavior and human resource management (OB/HRM) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Chenwei has conducted research on the effects of servant leadership, leader-member exchange, and employment relationships on employee and organizational outcomes. His research has been accepted for presentation at academic conferences such as the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) annual conferences and the Industrial-Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior conferences. Also, his coauthored research projects has received recognition and funding from organizations such as the Society for Human Resource Management Foundation and the Center for Human Resource Management (CHRM) at the University of Illinois. His research topic is “Towards an Understanding of Servant Leadership Climate.”

IVAN BUTAR BUTAR
Ivan Butar Butar’s research project is “The Relationship between Servant Leadership and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Evidence from Indonesia.” Butar Butar is a PhD candidate at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, where he is completing his degree in Organization Studies. He is also the recipient of the 2008 Australian Leadership Award Scholarship awarded by the Australian Government for future leaders in the Asia-Pacific region. He is currently a management consultant at Lembaga Management in Jakarta, Indonesia, where he has consulted with many world-renowned organizations.

JEREMY MEUSER
Jeremy D. Meuser is a PhD candidate at the University of Illinois at Chicago where he is completing his degree in Managerial Studies. The topic of his research “The Combined Effect of Servant Leadership and Follower Servant Leadership Prototype on Employee Engagement and Team Performance.” He has a particular interest in how a leader can be a source of positive experiences that contribute to the well-being of individuals in the workplace. Before pursuing his doctoral degree, he had a career in information technology with internships, teaching experience, and the role of a founding partner for an IT limited liability corporation in Michigan. He has also completed a certificate in spirituality from Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska and a degree in philosophy at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, Michigan.

TRAVIS SEARLE
Travis Searle’s research project is “Servant Leadership Characteristics: An Indirect Effect on Employees’ Proactive Work Behavior via Psychological Empowerment.” Searle is a PhD candidate at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where he is completing his degree in Leadership Studies. He is currently an instructor and graduate research assistant at the University of Nebraska and has also been a visiting instructor in the religion department at Brigham Young University. He has a particular interest in servant leadership, positive behavior, leadership development, and multilevel modeling. Before pursuing his doctoral degree, he taught religion to high school students. Searle received his Masters in Education from Weber State University.

ALEXANDRA PANACCIO
Dr. Alexandra Panaccio of the University of Illinois at Chicago, will research “How Do Servant-Leaders Influence Employee Well-Being and Performance? The Mediating Role of Employee Commitment and Motivation.” Alexandra Panaccio was born and raised in Montreal, Canada. She completed a bachelor’s in law at University of Montreal, and obtained in a Masters in Business Administration and a doctorate in human resources and organizational behavior at HEC Montreal. She is currently conducting post-doctoral research at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

NICHOLAS A. BOWMAN
Dr. Nicholas Bowman of the University of Notre Dame, whose research topic is “Creating Effective Servant-Leaders: College Experiences and the Development of Values and Accompanying Attributes of Servant Leadership.” Nicholas A. Bowman is a postdoctoral research associate in the Center for Social Concerns at the University of Notre Dame. He graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in Psychology from UCLA. He attended graduate school at the University of Michigan, where he received two master’s degrees in Education, a graduate certificate in Culture and Cognition, and a Ph.D. in an individually-designed interdepartmental program in Social Psychology and Higher Education.

KAE REYNOLDS
Kae (Kristen) Reynolds of Gonzaga University, who will research “Servant Leadership and the Ethic of Care: An Exploration of Correlations and Gender.” Kae Reynolds is a Ph.D. student as well as a teaching and graduate assistant in the Department of Leadership Studies. She attended the University of Iowa as a Presidential Scholar. After a year abroad in Moscow from 1988-1989 and completion of her secondary teacher certification, Kae graduated Summa Cum Laude with a B.A. and honors in Russian. She earned her Master’s degree in Organizational Leadership at Saint Ambrose University.

JIA HU
Jia Hu of the University of Illinois at Chicago, who will research “A Team-Level Social Exchange Model of Servant Leadership and Team Effectiveness.” Jia is currently a doctoral candidate in Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management. She received her M.A. in Human Resource Management from the Renmin University of China, and her B.A. in Business Administration from the Central University of Economics and Finance.

CURTIS D. BECK
The title of Mr. Beck’s research project is “Antecedents of Servant Leadership: A Mixed Methods Study.” Curt is currently a Ph.D. Candidate in Human Sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln specializing in Leadership Studies. His background includes extensive experience developing, implementing, and administering educational and training programs to improve personal and organizational effectiveness. Because of his expertise in workforce issues, Curt was appointed by Governor Mike Johanns to serve on the Nebraska Workforce Development Board. He also served as the Deputy Commissioner of the Nebraska Department of Labor, where he was responsible for managing the organizational and strategic initiatives for a state agency with 22 offices and 500 employees. Curt lives in Lincoln, Nebraska with his wife and son.

DR. ANDREA BOBBIO
The title of Dr. Bobbio’s research project is “The Servant Leadership Inventory: Validation in the Italian context and effects of servant leadership on individual and organizational variables.” Dr. Bobbio obtained his Ph.D. in Personality and Social Psychology at the University of Padua in 2005. His research project dealt with the Social Identity Theory of Leadership and leading change. During his Ph.D. program, he spent four months as a visiting researcher at the Rotterdam School of Management in Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. He has a particular interest in innovative theories of leadership, how individuals and small groups behave at work, and the interplay between organizational efficiency and job satisfaction. He has had experience in correlational and experimental studies, in supervising students for graduation theses, and in teaching.

DR. LORA L. REED
The title of Dr. Reed’s research project is “Emergency (9-1-1) Dispatchers as Servant-Leaders among Us.” Dr. Reed is an Assistant Professor of Management at Eckerd College. She holds a Ph.D. in Organization and Management and a Certificate in Training and Development from Capella University. Her dissertation examined the Big Five personality traits and servant leadership characteristics as factors in retention of 9-1-1 telecommunicators. Her dissertation was published as a monograph, Personality and Leadership as Dispatcher Retention Tools, in December of 2008. Lora has written numerous articles and delivered many presentations on various aspects of servant leadership in organizations. She has successfully written workforce development grants totaling over one million dollars and has worked with Florida Workforce Boards to integrate service-learning as a strategy for workforce, employee, organizational, and community development. She resides in Bradenton, Florida with her husband, Dana.