Whitman Welcomes New Faculty
Syracuse University’s Whitman School of Management is pleased to welcome five new faculty members for the 2026-27 academic year.
ERIN DIFABIO ’18
Assistant Teaching Professor of Accounting 
Erin DiFabio joins the Department of Accounting as a non-tenured assistant teaching professor. A proud Whitman alumna herself, she will teach a range of accounting courses.
DiFabio previously served as an assistant professor at High Point University’s Philips School of Business, teaching financial, managerial, intermediate and advanced accounting. Before that, she spent five years as visiting faculty at William & Mary’s Raymond A. Mason School of Business, teaching business and accounting courses while serving as associate director of admissions for the one-year master’s program.
Her scholarly interests bridge accounting, ethics and analytics, focusing on financial disclosure and corporate transparency. Her dissertation examines non-GAAP financial measures among companies that violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
At William & Mary, DiFabio earned the Online Faculty Champion Award (2025) and Faculty Excellence Award (2024). A U.S. Marine Corps veteran who served from 2002 to 2004, she was promoted to corporal and received six letters of appreciation.
DiFabio earned a D.B.A. from Marymount University, master’s degrees in business analytics and accounting from William & Mary and bachelor’s degree in accounting from the Whitman School.
ABRAR KHAN
Assistant Teaching Professor in Supply Chain Management 
Abrar Khan joins Whitman’s marketing department as a non-tenure track assistant teaching professor, where he will teach introductory supply chain courses.
Khan previously served as an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia from 2022 to 2026, teaching operations and logistics at the undergraduate and graduate levels. He has also taught supply chain courses at Simon Fraser University, University Canada West and the British Columbia Institute of Technology.
Beyond academia, Khan brings more than 15 years of industry experience in supply chain and operations across the mining, public sector, telecommunications and manufacturing industries.
He has also been active in the supply chain profession, serving on the board of APICS Vancouver (now ASCM Western Canada) in various leadership roles from 2015 to 2021.
Khan holds an MBA from the University of British Columbia, a master’s degree in industrial engineering from Northern Illinois University and a bachelor’s degree in instrumentation engineering from Osmania University in India. He is a certified supply chain professional and certified in planning and inventory management through the Association for Supply Chain Management.
REBECCA LAU
Assistant Teaching Professor of Marketing
Rebecca Lau joins Whitman as a non-tenure track assistant teaching professor. She will be teaching courses in new product development and global marketing strategy and has previously taught at Whitman as an adjunct professor.
Before joining Whitman, Lau served as director of marketing, admissions and enrollment management at Manlius Pebble Hill School, following senior leadership roles at International School Bangkok and Suzhou Singapore International School. She also runs a consulting practice advising global brands on marketing strategy and positioning.
Earlier in her career, Lau worked in brand strategy at M&C Saatchi and Interbrand, leading projects for Heineken, Colgate, the NFL, Procter & Gamble and FedEx.
Lau has also taught at California State University, Long Beach and Marist College.
She earned a master of global management from Thunderbird School of Global Management and dual bachelor’s degrees in marketing and public relations from the University of Dayton.
JOHN MCKEON
Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship
John McKeon joins the Department of Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises as a tenure-track assistant professor.
McKeon worked as a managing consultant at Edgeworth Economics in Washington, D.C. for several years. He then made his way back to higher education and taught strategy, innovation and global competition at the undergraduate level and previously served as a teaching assistant for several courses spanning undergraduate and MBA programs at Boston University.
His research focuses on entrepreneurial strategy and innovation, examining startup acquisitions, digitization and technology commercialization. His work has been published in Management Science and the International Productivity Monitor.
McKeon received the Strategic Management Society Best Ph.D. Paper Award (2025) and the Questrom Outstanding Doctoral Research Award (2024). He also received the 2024 Questrom Outstanding Ph.D. Teaching Award.
He received both his Ph.D. and bachelor’s degree from Boston University.
JUDY RADY
Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship
Judy Rady joins Whitman as a tenure-track assistant professor. She will be teaching entrepreneurship courses including Introduction to Entrepreneurship.
Prior to joining Whitman, Rady served as an assistant professor at the University of Kansas School of Business. Before that, she was a lecturer at Virginia Tech.
Her research explores the impact of artificial intelligence on entrepreneurial decision-making, examining how AI intersects with knowledge problems, entrepreneurial action, hype and governance, and how these dynamics reshape venture creation and growth.
Rady received the Pamplin College Excellence Doctoral Summer Research Grant in 2024 and the Holtzman Award for Graduate Research Excellence in 2025 from Virginia Tech. Her co-authored paper, "Navigating Uncertainty: Timeless Wisdom for Turbulent Times," received the 2024-25 Schulze Publication Award from the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Exchange.
Rady earned her Ph.D. in 2025, her MBA and M.S. in business administration from Virginia Tech and holds a bachelor’s degree from Nile University in Egypt.