Ethné Swartz, Ph.D., is Professor of Information Management and Entrepreneurship and a 2018-2019 Fulbright Scholar in South Africa where she is based at the University of Pretoria's Gordon Institute of Business Science. She joins the Feliciano School of Business from Fairleigh Dickinson’s Silberman College of Business where she was on the faculty from 2000 to 2018, holding the rank of full professor and serving as a Sam Walton Fellow and Advisor to the FDU Enactus Chapter. From 2006 to 2014, she chaired the Marketing and Entrepreneurship Department and then served as an associate dean in the Silberman College of Business. She earned a Ph.D. in in Management from the University of Manchester, Manchester, UK and an MS in Information Systems from Manchester Metropolitan University. A South African native, she holds a B.A. (Hons) in Sociology from Rhodes University, South Africa and a B.A. in Psychology/Sociology from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Her research and teaching interests include strategic management, entrepreneurship and innovation, management of technology, business continuity and crisis management.

Dr. Swartz was a Fulbright Scholar based at Zeppelin University in Germany during the spring of 2014. She will be based at the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science during spring and summer of 2019, focusing on women’s entrepreneurship in sub-Saharan Africa. She also conducts research on how women who own or manage high-growth companies can best participate in negotiating term sheets for capital investment in their companies.

Dr. Swartz is an active contributor to New Jersey’s entrepreneurial organizations and ecosystem. She has been active in the United States Association of Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE), serving as a board member and as the Vice President of Conference for the annual conference in January 2011. She has served as USASBE’s Vice President of Publications, most recently creating the USASBE Annals of Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy, published by Edward Elgar. She is the co-author of two books and her research articles have appeared in the International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship, Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship, Long Range Planning, Risk Management: An International Journal, Journal of Applied Management Studies, Leadership and Organisational Development Journal, Business Horizons, International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research, Facilities, Education and Training; ET&P. She serves on the editorial board of the Annals of Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy and previously served as an associate editor for the Journal of Small Business Management. From 1994 to October 1999, Dr. Swartz taught Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship at Leicester Business School, DeMontfort University, in Leicester, UK, where she was instrumental in setting up a center for research into business continuity management. Prior to her academic career, Dr. Swartz worked at General Motors (South Africa) and Kodak (South Africa).

Vidya Atal is a Professor in the Department of Economics at Montclair State University. She holds a Master's and a Ph.D. degree in economics from Cornell University. Earlier, she received a Master's degree in quantitative economics from the Indian Statistical Institute.

Her specialization is in applied microeconomics, with research spanning industrial organization, development economics, and policy analysis. Her work focuses on how institutional frameworks and public policies influence economic outcomes and distributional patterns. She studies key issues in development economics, including women’s empowerment, intra-household bargaining, inequality, and gender gaps, alongside topics in industrial organization such as U.S. patent policy, open-source software licensing, firm behavior in patent races, and R&D investment decisions.

Dr. Atal’s research articles have been published in some of the top-tier peer-reviewed journals in economics. To name a few, they are: Games and Economic Behavior, The Journal of Industrial Economics, International Journal of Industrial Organization, Review of Economics of the Household, Economics Letters, Economics Bulletin, and B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy. She has presented her research in several national and international conferences, like the International Industrial Organization Conference and the Royal Economic Society Annual Conference.

I have helped run a commercial printer for nearly 13 years.  I have taken on nearly every role during this time from bookkeeping to design work to sales and even production.  I helped modernize a 70+ year old family business and helped head the creation and implementation of our Offset Hunger initiative with Feeding America.  Over the years I have helped grow the company after a severe economic downturn in the industry as well as navigate the perils of Covid-19 where we saw many in our industry close their doors.

My experience ranges from customer service and job management to problem solving and practical skills in both design and manufacturing.  I have managed projects for Fortune 500 companies as well as NJ based corporations such as Ferrero Roche, Merck, Johnson & Johnson, & Celgene.

My past jobs and life experiences include coaching soccer, volunteer firefighter, corporate accounts payable and receivable, department manager, and restaurateur.  I believe my unique skillset and experience would be applicable to a wide range of student interests.