2013 Graduate Scholar Award Recipients

For each conference, a small number of Graduate Scholar Awards are given to outstanding graduate students who have an active academic interest in the conference area. The Award with its accompanying responsibilities provides a strong professional development opportunity for graduate students at this stage in their academic careers.  The 2013 Graduate Scholar Awardees are listed below.

ahmet can

Ahmet Can is a PhD Candidate in Information Science at the University of North Texas. He earned his master’s degree in Public Administration from the Institute of Public Administration for Turkey and Middle East (TODAIE). He is a member of Turkish National Police since 1995. Prior to attending the University of North Texas, Ahmet served for the United Nations in Bosnia-Herzegovina as a monitor to the local police against human rights violations, in East Timor as a technical advisor to the local police, and in New York with the Department of Safety and Security as an officer. His primary interest areas are organizational justice, organizational citizenship behavior and their influence on knowledge management and sharing practices particularly among the members of the Turkish National Police.

briana hedman

Briana Hedman is a PhD student in Counseling Psychology at the University of Denver. In addition to clinical work she is interested in organizational culture, career decision making, and women in leadership. She is currently the Assistant Director of the National Center for Intermodal Transportation, a position she has held since September 2010. During that time she has been involved in several studies, including research projects related to workforce and management development issues of women in transportation and the development of a measure of inclusivity related to productivity and retention of employees in the public transportation sector.

Samantha Kanta

Sam Kanta is a Ph.D. Graduand at Walden University in the School of Management where she recently conducted studies in leadership and organizational change focused on her research interests in complexity, sustainability, and distributed cognition. Her dissertation was a phenomenological account of emergent leaders within global virtual teams, through which a composite description of emergence highlighted the kinds of interactions occurring in socially complex adaptive systems. Sam received a B.Mus from Melbourne University, Graduate Diplomas In Education and Interactive Multimedia from Sydney University and the University of Technology, Sydney, respectively, as well as a M.Ed in Information Technology from Charles Sturt University, Bathurst--All qualifications were earned in Australia, prior to relocating to the USA, where she currently resides. She has published conference papers as a doctoral student in the ACM Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), the International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCII), as well as the Australian Computer-Human Interaction Society (OZCHI). Currently, Sam is Principal Consultant at The Sustainable Change, LLC where she develops and co-produces an online knowledge service providing expert analysis and learning media on research related to sustainable practices and design. The online service "makes sense of the science", enabling individuals and organizations to make informed changes on how to exist sustainably within local, regional, and global contexts.

Jephte munez

Jephte Muñez is a Doctor of Public Administration student from the University of the Philippines – National College of Public Administration and Governance.  By profession, Jephte is a Certified Public Accountant (since 1992), a Philippine Real Estate Appraiser (since 2011) and a Philippine Real Estate Broker (since 2012).  He finished BS Commerce in Accounting (1990) and his MBA (2006) from the University of Santo Tomas.  He finished MS Finance (2010) from the University of the Philippines. He has been in the academe teaching accounting, finance and taxation for almost twelve years.  He is currently employed as a full time faculty member of San Beda College (Manila) and has the rank of Assistant Professor.  Correspondingly, he has done consultancy work related to feasibility study preparation and taxation with various small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the Philippines for the past ten years.  He recently concluded a World Bank funded consultancy work as a Financial Management Specialist of the National Community-Driven Development Program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (Philippines).  As far as research is concern, he received a research grant from the University of St. Thomas (St. Paul, Minnesota, USA) in June 2012 and was privileged to present his research papers in various international conferences held in the Philippines, China (where his paper was awarded Honourable Mention in the field of Entrepreneurship), Hong Kong, Japan and the United States of America.  His research interests are on the field of finance, accounting education, taxation and public administration (specifically on state audit and land valuation).

Kalu oji

Kalu Oji is well trained in the field of Business Administration and Management. He is currently studying at the University of Salford, England where he is rounding up his post graduate degree programme in view MSc. Management. He just handed in his dissertation work titled  “Investigating Reasons Why Overseas Students Choose United Kingdom Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) As Their Study Destination”. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from Nigeria. Over the years, he has gained knowledge and working experience at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (N.N.P.C), Nigerian Ministry of Energy/Petroleum and few other private firms before moving to the UK to foster his academic capabilities. Recently, he has been able to put his academic knowledge gained from various institutions into practice through his selfless participation in several humanitarian activities aimed at improving lives of people living in competitive environments where they are exposed to economic challenges. By doing this, he has restored hope to many. He also acts as consultant to firms around the globe. Kalu has taken part in several conferences and was a runner up in the selection of the Graduate Scholar Award for the 2012 Conference on Knowledge, Culture and Change Management which he attended at University Center Chicago, Illinois, USA. He is pleased to be spotted as an outstanding graduate student who has an active academic interest and as such, worthy to be honoured with a Graduate Scholar Award in the forthcoming 2013 Conference held in Vancouver, Canada.

Trevor omoruyi

Trevor is currently registered as a PhD student at the Salford Business School, Greater Manchester United Kingdom. He is a graduate scholar whose background cuts across diverse disciplines; He has an MBA (Distinction) from Salford Business School, MSc from Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, and Certificate in Finance from London School of Economics and Political Science and a BSc (Hons) Accounting. His research interests include: Marketing Services Marketing – in particular in the Higher Education service, student retention, Customer Management, in particular: Customer Satisfaction, Retention and Loyalty in the Banking and Logistics industry, Relationship Marketing, Service Dominant Logic, Internationalisation and Globalisation, and Enterprise. He is currently carrying out his doctoral research under the supervision of Dr. Grazyna Rembielak-Vitchev and Dr. Jonathan Swift. He is a member of the Association of MBA’s (AMBA). He has served as a consultant, employee, and volunteering roles in different industries. He is a recipient of several academic scholarships and research grants. His keen interest of giving back to the community and the world in general has led him into offering voluntary academic support to peers in UK and students in Nigeria, serving as an online volunteer researcher for United Nations, and an active member of St Vincent De Paul a charity organisation in the Catholic Church. He has taken so much into trying to publish journal papers and collaborating with scholars in different part of the globe on how to contribute to knowledge. He has participated in several researches and international conferences, seminars, workshops and lectures.

Monica semenuik

Monica Semeniuk’s life has been a varied one.  Her admission last year to the PhD program in the Beedie School of Business at Simon Fraser University builds upon a 25-year career, mostly in project management.  As a consultant, she worked with clients of varying size and organizational complexity in multiple industries, from insurance and healthcare, to telecommunications and petrochemicals.  The scope of Ms. Semeniuk’s projects ranged from changing corporate climate during business expansion; to the design, build and implementation of a web-based clinical solution.  Her most successful project culminated in a Silver Award at the 2007 Canadian Information Productivity Awards in the category of “Not-for-Profit:  Collaboration.” Ms. Semeniuk holds a Master of Engineering degree in the Project Management Specialization from the University of Calgary.  She has delivered presentations at project management events in North America, India and Australia, while utilizing skills that she learned in her early training in theater.   In addition to these travels, her desire to enhance her inter-cultural communication skills took her to Malaysia for 2 years, where she developed and delivered project management training for clients within Asia, Australia and Europe.  Her foray into training leveraged the skills that she learned during studies for her Bachelor of Education degree, which may soon become useful for teaching students at the university level.  Ms. Semeniuk is honored to be selected as a Graduate Scholar for the Thirteenth International Conference on Knowledge, Culture and Change Management in her new hometown of Vancouver, Canada.

makoji robert stephen

Makoji is currently enrolled for his PhD in Human Resource Management (HRM) as a Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) Scholar at the University of Salford Business School under the supervision of Professor Ralph Darlington. He has MSc in Human Resource Management from the University of Salford, Greater Manchester and MSc degree in Public Administration from the Benue State University, Makurdi, Nigeria. He is a member of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) United States of America, Nigerian Institute of Training and Development (NITAD) and the Manchester Industrial Relations Society (MIRS). Makoji was a visiting researcher at the Southern University’s International Centre for Information Technology and Development in the year 2011. He is currently a Senior Lecturer with the Federal Polytechnic, Idah, Kogi State, Nigeria with over twelve (12) years lecturing experience. He also serves as management consultant to some agencies. He is a volunteer at the Christian Aid Foundation (CAFUND) Nigeria. Makoji’s main interest is to put to work his knowledge and skills in furthering Human Resource Development in Higher Education Institutions (HEI’s), and in so doing, learning on the field and building a further dossier of knowledge in this area of interest through academic interaction and social research. He is a Student Representative at the Salford Business School where he has consistently encouraged the expression of individual and collective student interest and the forging of a new staff-student culture and relationship. His attendance at the Conference is partly funded through the University of Salford PGR Conference Fund.