Colleen McClure, Ph.D., and Simon Sheng, Ph.D., have been selected as the first recipients of the Searcy Faculty Research Award at the UAB Collat School of Business.
Collat professors (l-r) Colleen McClure, Ph.D., and Simon Sheng, Ph.D.The new award, funded through a generous gift from DeWayne and Shelley Searcy, recognizes and encourages high-impact research conducted by Collat business faculty.
“Research published in high-quality journals, while demanding, is the research most likely to shape practice and help organizations address their most challenging problems,” said John Hansen, Ph.D., Collat’s associate dean for research, academic, and faculty affairs. “Producing great research also enhances the student learning experience as quality research and effective teaching go hand in hand.”
The award recipients were selected by the school’s Research Advisory Committee, which created two categories of awards—a Junior Faculty Research Award for tenure-track faculty members who have not yet received tenure, and a Senior Faculty Research Award for tenured faculty members. The award recognizes each professor’s overall body of research with a particular emphasis on research quality.
McClure, an associate professor of distribution, received the Junior Faculty Research Award. She joined Collat’s faculty in 2022 after receiving her doctorate in marketing from Oklahoma State University. She teaches distribution analytics and distribution management, and her research interests include sales management. She already has one highly cited paper in Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management as well as others in Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management and Industrial Marketing Management.
Sheng, a professor of marketing, received the Senior Faculty Research Award. He joined Collat’s faculty in 2011 and received his doctorate in marketing from Virginia Tech. He teaches international marketing, and his research interests include marketing strategy in emerging markets and institutional theory. He has published numerous papers in leading marketing and management journals such as Journal of Marketing, Journal of Operations Management, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, British Journal of Management, Journal of Business Research, International Journal of Research in Marketing, and others.
The Searcy Faculty Research Award comes with a $2,000 prize for each professor, funded through the school’s DeWayne and Shelley Searcy Research Fund.
“We are tremendously grateful to DeWayne and Shelley for their gift that allows us to recognize and reward outstanding research,” Hansen said. “Their support strengthens our commitment to producing research that makes a difference in practice and enhances teaching and learning in the classroom.”