Toronto – Two professors at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management were named among the fifty best undergraduate business professors of 2023 by Poets&Quants for Undergraduates.
Rhia Catapano, an assistant professor of marketing, and Rachel Ruttan, an assistant professor of organizational behaviour and human resource management, were recognized for their teaching in the Rotman Commerce program, their scholarly research, as well as their overall contributions to the Rotman School.
Poets&Quants received more than 650 nominations from students, alumni, administrators, and faculty from over fifty leading business schools. The Rotman School was one of twelve schools who placed two faculty members on the list.
“I can not thank Prof. Catapano enough for her help with our startup by both meeting with us to strategize and using us as a case study in her class. Creating and running a startup has a lot of challenges, and sometimes we have wanted to give up, but with gestures like including our app as part of her class, my team and I were re-ignited with the drive and motivation to make this startup succeed. It’s clear that Prof. Catapano really cares about and supports both her current and former students,” said Tejas Trikha, Rotman Commerce ’26, and Founder of CouBon.
“Prof. Ruttan’s teaching is nothing short of extraordinary, and she has received a Rotman teaching award every single year since starting at Rotman. Her passion for the subject is often mentioned by her students, who remark on her being “the most passionate” and “the best” “amazing” and “my favourite” in their undergraduate experience. Her commitment to equity and inclusion also are apparent from her teaching evaluations, making space for all to contribute to classroom discussion,” said Katy DeCelles, a professor of organizational behaviour and human resource management at the Rotman School.
Prof. Catapano holds a PhD in marketing and psychology from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. Her research explores how consumer psychology can be leveraged to benefit society. In one stream, she examines how people can be shifted away from entrenched views, and factors that affect receptiveness to the opposition. In another research stream, she explores the role of meaning in consumer satisfaction and decision-making. Her research has been published in leading journals including Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Psychological Science, and Journal of Consumer Psychology.
Prof. Ruttan holds a PhD in Management and Organizations from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Her research interests include compassion and prosocial behavior, values, and moral judgment. Specifically, she studies lapses in interpersonal compassion, as well as the potential pitfalls of organizations' attempts to appeal to morals and values, showing when and how "doing well by doing good" can backfire. Her research has been published in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Organization Science, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
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The Rotman School of Management is part of the University of Toronto, a global centre of research and teaching excellence at the heart of Canada’s commercial capital. Rotman is a catalyst for transformative learning, insights and public engagement, bringing together diverse views and initiatives around a defining purpose: to create value for business and society. For more information, visit www.rotman.utoronto.ca
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For more information:
Ken McGuffin
Manager, Media Relations
Rotman School of Management
University of Toronto
E-mail: mcguffin@rotman.utoronto.ca