Six students stand with awards alongside two international programs directors
From left: Yilin Shao, Yiduo Shao, Luiza Reis Duarte, Camilla Eunyoung Song, Charles Dsane, Magnus Pettersen, Joe Rojo, Director for International Programs, and Dr. Leo Villalon, Dean of the International Center.

Six Warrington students honored by UF International Center

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Six students from the Warrington College of Business received Outstanding International Student Awards from the University of Florida International Center on November 19.

The Outstanding International Student Award recognizes international students who not only meet exemplary academic achievement, but also a wide range of accomplishments and contributions.

Warrington’s recipients for 2019 are:

Yiduo Shao (Ph.D. ’22): Shao, originally from Shenyang, China, is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of management. She earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology and bachelor’s degree in economics from Peking University in Beijing. Her research interests, among the topics in organizational behavior, include extra-role behaviors, such as helping and voice behaviors, as well as teams, aging and power.

“Specifically, I am fascinated by how and why employees are willing to go beyond their job duties to help others or make suggestions to make the organization a better place,” she said.

Shao has been published in Work, Aging and Retirement, most recently in an article titled, “Reducing older workers’ sickness absence: The moderating role of perceived fairness,” which investigates the relationship between age and sickness absence, and highlighted perceived fairness as a critical boundary condition for the relationship. She also has several articles under review in the Journal of Applied Psychology and Personnel Psychology.

For the past two years, Shao has served as a research assistant for Dr. Mo Wang. She will be teaching Organizations: Structure and Behavior in the spring of 2020.

“I feel extremely grateful and honored to receive this award,” she said. “I am once again amazed by the constantly supportive climate that the Warrington College of Business create for us international students. This is not only an important recognition of my efforts during my time at UF, but also a crucial motivator to my future research efforts.”

Shao was nominated for the Outstanding International Student Award by Dr. Joyce Bono, W.A. McGriff, III Professor in the department of management.

 “I am very grateful to the award committee and my nominator, Dr. Joyce Bono, for kindly considering me as qualified to receive this award,” Shao added. “I also wanted to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor, Dr. Mo Wang, without whom I would not have achieved this. I also want to thank all the faculty members and fellow Ph.D. students for their support.”

Luiza Reis Duarte (MIB ’19): Duarte is pursuing her Master of International Business at Warrington. The Rio de Janeiro, Brazil-native received her bachelor’s degree in marketing from South Carolina State University. She is currently a teaching assistant for Dr. Linda Clarke in the department of management and serves as the director of philanthropy for the Master of International Business Ambassadors. Duarte was nominated for the Outstanding International Student Award by Ana Portocarrero, Director of the Master of International Business and Master of Science in Management programs. 

“It feels really good to have all my efforts getting recognized,” Duarte said. “As an international student, we face many barriers and struggles along the way and being able to overcome it and keep on going strong requires a lot of hard work.”

Camilla Eunyoung Song (Ph.D. ’21): Song is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of marketing. Originally from Seoul, South Korea, she received her bachelor’s degree in global business from SungKyunKwan University. Her research interests include how consumers make choices when using smartphones as compared to other devices (e.g. PCs).

“So far, we found that smartphone use increases people to perceive their choices as self-expression and choose the options that can express the self, such as more unique and personalized options,” she said.

She previously taught Consumer Behavior in the spring of 2019 and is currently the teaching assistant for Dr. Yanping Tu’s Consumer Behavior and Consumer Insights courses.

 Song was nominated for the award by Dr. Aner Sela, City Furniture Professor in the department of marketing.

“The Outstanding International Student Awards was such an amazing experience!” she said. “I was really happy to get to meet other international students from all over the world. I really appreciate this opportunity and want to thank everybody wo worked hard to organize this event!”

Charles Dsane (MSE ’19): Dsane is pursuing a Master of Science in Entrepreneurship. Originally from Ghana, he received his master’s in management from Lobachevsky University of Nizhny Novgorod in Russia, where his research topic on the attractiveness of the Russian and U.S. residential construction market was published. Dsane was nominated for the Outstanding International Student Award by Parker Van Hart, Director of the Thomas S. Johnson Master of Science in Entrepreneurship.

“Being recognized with this award is a great honor and has been one of the proudest moments of my academic career,” he said. “The experience has been a confidence booster and means that my hard work here at the University of Florida has paid off.”

Yilin Shao (BSAc ’21): Shao is an undergraduate student at the Fisher School of Accounting. She is originally from Shanghai, China and is a member of the Global Business Society, Beta Alpha Psi and an International Programs Student Ambassador. Shao was nominated by Jason Ward, Associate Director of International Programs at the Heavener School of Business, and said winning an Outstanding International Student Award feels very special.  

“I feel honored, and I cannot thank advisor Jason Ward from Global Business Society enough,” she said.

Magnus Pettersen (BSBA ’19, MIB ’20): Pettersen is a candidate in the Master of International Business program. Originally from Drammen, Norway, he received his undergraduate degree in management from Warrington in 2019. He is the head teaching assistant for Dr. Amanda Phalin’s International Business course and is a student athlete, competing on both UF’s track and field and cross-country teams. Pettersen was nominated for the award by Dr. Phalin, Lecturer in the department of management.

“It is a great honor receiving this award,” he said. “I know that there are other very good candidates for this award as well, and I and happy and honored that my worked was noticed.”

See more photos from the event on Facebook.