10 Warrington students honored by UF International Center
Ten students from the Warrington College of Business were honored with Outstanding Achievement Awards from the University of Florida International Center (UFIC) on November 16.
The Outstanding Achievement Award recognizes international students who not only meet exemplary academic achievement, but also a wide range of accomplishments and contributions.
The 10 Warrington students honored were Hae Jin So, FNU Divya, Ankita Jairath, Ngoc Tran, Minmo Gahng, Mariia Petryk, Xiang Wan, Felipe Affonso, Wenxin Qje and Camila Salviano.
Of the 10, four Warrington students were nominated for monetary scholarships. Warrington’s nominees were:
FELIPE AFFONSO (Ph.D. ’23)
Affonso is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of marketing. He earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing in 2015 and a master’s degree in marketing in 2018, both from the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. His research interests include consumer goal pursuit, consumer inference-making, the behavioral immune system, and consumer feelings and emotions.
Affonso served as the instructor for Marketing Management (MAR4803) this spring.
“It was great to be nominated for the Outstanding Achievement Award, and I’m proud of it,” Affonso said. “I will even choose a nice frame to put the certificate in!”
Affonso was nominated for the Outstanding Achievement Award by Dr. Chris Janiszewski.
FNU DIVYA (MS-ISOM ’22)
Divya is a student in the Master of Science in Information Systems and Operations Management program on the data science track. She previously received a Bachelor of Technology in Electronics & Telecommunication from Symbiosis International University, Pune, India.
Divya chose Warrington to pursue her master’s because of the opportunity to work with the college’s Business Career Services office, as well as the high-end course options for business and technology with an option for an internship.
“I felt proud, happy, overwhelmed, and delighted,” Divya said about winning the award. “They give us validation and boost our confidence. Acknowledgment and recognition are vital human needs. Winning and losing generate strong emotional responses in us.”
Divya was nominated for the award by Natasha Plunkett.
MINMO GAHNG (Ph.D. ’22)
Minmo Gahng is a Ph.D. candidate in the finance department. He received his bachelor’s degree from Yonsei University in 2011 and worked at Korea Development Bank and Export-Import Bank of Korea (K-EXIM) as a loan officer. He earned a master’s in economics from Duke University in 2017.
His research interests are fast-growing entrepreneurial firms, studying how they finance their growth and innovation in the capital market. For his dissertation, Minmo studies the intersection of venture capital (VC) and labor economics to explore how the VC financing contract plays a role in attracting human capital. Minmo actively collaborates with people and institutions outside the University of Florida, learning from and contributing to the academic profession. He has been working as the teaching assistant for the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Entrepreneurship Research Boot Camp. Minmo also co-organized the student-led Workshop on Entrepreneurial Finance and Innovation (WEFI).
“I was very excited when I heard the news that I was nominated for the Outstanding Achievement Award,” Gahng said. “I can’t thank enough my advisors – Jay Ritter, Mark Flannery, and Andy Naranjo – and our finance Ph.D. program coordinator Mahendrarajah Nimalendran for their guidance and support.”
Gahng was nominated for the award by Dr. Jay Ritter and Dr. Andy Naranjo.
HAE JIN SO (MBA ’23, MS-ISOM ’23)
Hae Jin So is a student in the UF MBA program who will also be starting in the Master of Science in Information Systems and Operations Management program in 2022. She graduated from Kyung Hee University in South Korea with a Bachelor of Business Administration in Hotel Management and a Bachelor of Arts in Interpretation and Translation.
She serves as the VP of Communications for the 2021-22 UF MBA Association after serving as VP of Internal Affairs the previous year. She also serves as the Treasurer of the UF Korean Student Association and works as Data Intelligence Research Coordinator within the Department of Epidemiology’s Data Intelligence Systems Lab, supporting Dr. Mattia Prosperi, whose research areas include data science, artificial intelligence, and biomedical modeling.
“I was so honored and grateful to be selected as one of the two college nominations for the Outstanding Achievement Award!” So said. “I couldn’t show my thankfulness in words to my recommenders and committee members for choosing me.”
She was nominated for the award by Janin Menendez.
