WASHINGTON –The Howard University School of Business is pleased to announce the appointment of three esteemed faculty members to associate and assistant deanships. Rajni Goel, Ph.D., will serve as Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, Yuvay Meyers Ferguson, Ph.D., will serve as Assistant Dean of Impact and Engagement, and Allison Morgan Bryant, Ph.D. will serve as Assistant Dean of Innovation and Administration.

“It is important to identify strong leaders in the School of Business to support our strategic vision and that can move us forward in this dynamic business education environment,” said Anthony D. Wilbon, Ph.D., dean of the School of Business. “I am confident that the appointment of Dr. Rajni Goel as associate dean, as well as Dr. Yuvay Ferguson and Dr. Allison Bryant as assistant deans in the School of Business, will provide unique perspectives that enhance our competitiveness. As three of our highly esteemed faculty who have made significant contributions to our various centers and programs, I am happy they agreed to join the School's leadership team."

Goel has served as a professor in the School of Business at Howard University for 18 years. During her time at Howard, she has held a variety of positions in service of the School’s mission of providing superior business education to its diverse students. An expert in cybersecurity and cyber risk, she currently serves as the director of the Howard University Cyber-Security Education and Research Center (CERC), a center she helped to establish in the department.

Goel previously served as chair of the Information Systems and Supply Chain Management Department. Her international experience includes serving as a prestigious Fulbright-Nehru Scholar in India where she conducted research and assisted in curriculum development in cybersecurity and as cyber-security speaker in Malaysia as part of the U.S. Department of State’s International Information Programs. She served as a co-director of the Chair Leadership Academy and as the Summer Academy Faculty Scholar coach.  Goel earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Millersville University, followed by a master’s degree in mathematics and a doctoral degree in IT with a focus on information security from George Mason University.

Ferguson is an associate professor of marketing in the School of Business, where she teaches marketing communications and marketing strategy. She served as chair of the undergraduate marketing program and in 2013, created the HU Marketing Summit to raise scholarship money for marketing majors and expose students to careers in marketing. Ferguson made her mark as a faculty member by increasing the number of experiential learning opportunities for business majors, sourcing grants for classroom engagement with companies such as GM, Target, ZipCar, and L’Oreal. Before coming to Howard, she worked in advertising with clients such as the American Red Cross and BellSouth. Her research interest focuses on representation of Blacks and Millennials in advertising and their consumer behavior in the marketplace.

Ferguson is a member of the KPMG Ph.D. Project, the American Marketing Association, the Association for Consumer Research and the Marketing Ethnic Faculty Association. Herself a Howard alumna, Ferguson graduated with honors from Howard University with a bachelor's degree in international business marketing. She also earned a master’s degree in strategic communications from American University, and a doctoral degree in advertising at the University of Texas at Austin.

Bryant is an associate professor of information systems and supply chain management in the School of Business. Her research focuses on online health information, human information searching behavior, diversity of the information technology workforce, and the socio-cultural impact of technology. She has published articles on the impact of individual differences on user behavior, diversity in the global workplace, information searching behavior, and gender and information technology with specific focus on social networks and work-life balance among women.

Bryant has received grants from Facebook, The National Science Foundation, Boeing, and the GM Foundation. She continues to coordinate technology initiatives, including the annual #BisonHacks Hackathon at the School of Business. She has a true passion for teaching and students and loves nothing more than to be in the classroom. She previously worked as a technology consultant at Accenture and as a usability engineer at the United States Census Bureau.

She is a member of the KPMG Ph.D. Project, the Association for Computing Machinery, and the Association for Information Systems. Bryant holds a bachelor’s degree in computer information systems from Howard University and a doctoral degree in information sciences and technology from the Pennsylvania State University.

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About Howard University

Founded in 1867, Howard University is a private, research university that is comprised of 13 schools and colleges. Students pursue studies in more than 120 areas leading to undergraduate, graduate and professional degrees. The University operates with a commitment to Excellence in Truth and Service and has produced one Schwarzman Scholar, three Marshall Scholars, four Rhodes Scholars, 11 Truman Scholars, 25 Pickering Fellows and more than 165 Fulbright recipients. Howard also produces more on-campus African-American Ph.D. recipients than any other university in the United States. For more information on Howard University, visit www.howard.edu.

Media Contact: Misha Cornelius, misha.cornelius@howard.edu