Three Warrington Ph.D. students recognized with the 2026 Ph.D. Teaching Award for exceptional instruction

Ph.D. students Bingjie Lu (Ph.D. ’28), Jesse Render (Ph.D. ’28) and Kaiyu Zhang (Ph.D. ’27) were awarded the 2025-2026 Ph.D. Teaching Award from the Warrington College of Business.

Doctoral students are selected by the Warrington Teaching Committee and awarded by the UF Teaching & Learning Center for exceptional teaching as they independently lead a course during the fall 2025 and spring 2026 semesters. 

Read more about Lu, Render and Zhang’s remarkable teaching.

---

Bingjie Lu (Ph.D. ’28) | MAN3240 Organizations Structure and Behavior

Bingjie Lu is a Ph.D. student in Management at the University of Florida Warrington College of Business. Before beginning her Ph.D., Lu earned a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Peking University.

Her research focuses on human resource management, lifespan development and workplace interactions. Her work has been published in Personnel Psychology, an esteemed journal.

“I have always been very interested in understanding people’s thoughts, emotions, and behaviors in the workplace, as well as how they navigate their careers,” she said. “I chose to pursue my Ph.D. at UF because it provides an excellent environment for me to learn how to conduct meaningful research on these topics. The faculty are highly accomplished, research-focused and generous in sharing their expertise and guidance.”

Lu hopes her work can help organizations better understand the needs and experiences of employees across different life stages, how employees interact with one another and how human resource practices can be designed to create better workplaces.  

In fall 2025, Lu taught MAN3240 Organizations Structure and Behavior. This course aligned with her research interests and allowed her to share her passion for the field with her students.

“In this course, I introduce students to the core principles and concepts of organizational behavior while helping them develop the skills to apply those principles in the organizations where they may one day work as employees or managers,” she said. “Although the course is primarily lecture-based, I incorporate interactive activities into every class, such as team competitions and case discussions.”

Lu was both passionate about the topics taught in the course and excited to share what she has learned in the field with students. 

“Discussing these topics with my students often brings fresh perspectives, which has inspired my own research,” she said. “I hope the knowledge they gain from the course will be useful as they navigate their own careers.”

Lu shared that winning this award means a lot to her.

“It is very encouraging to know that the effort I have put into teaching has made a difference for my students and that some of the approaches I have taken have been effective in supporting their learning and development,” she said. “At the same time, I see this award as encouragement to keep learning and growing as an instructor, to continue improving my courses, and to further support my students’ intellectual and professional growth.”

Lu would like to thank Peter S. Sealey PhD Professor & Marketing Department Chair Richard Lutz for his Ph.D. teaching course, which was valuable in shaping her approach to teaching. She is also deeply grateful to the faculty and her peers in the Management Department for their support throughout her journey.

“Finally, I’d like to thank my students, whose enthusiasm, talent, and especially their willingness to actively engage in class, even at 7:30 in the morning, have made teaching rewarding and given me so much encouragement as an instructor.”

---

Jesse Render (Ph.D. ’28) | MAN4723 Strategic Management

Jesse Render is a Ph.D. student in Management at the University of Florida Warrington College of Business. Render is already a double Gator, with his Bachelor of Science in Finance and a Master of International Business from Warrington.

Before pursuing his Ph.D., he spent several years as a financial advisor with Equitable, supporting local community members and training younger advisors within the firm.

“Ultimately, those experiences confirmed that the aspects of my career I found most rewarding were teaching, mentoring and helping others understand complex ideas,” he said. “That realization led me back to the University of Florida to pursue a Ph.D. in strategic management, where I could combine my interests in research, education and business strategy.”

His research particularly focuses on political activity, organizational attraction and human cognitive biases. Collectively, his work seeks to better understand why organizations and individuals make the decisions they do and to generate insights that help managers make more informed, evidence-based decisions with positive organizational and societal outcomes.

In spring 2026, Render taught MAN4723 Strategic Management.

“Teaching Strategic Management was a particularly meaningful experience because it was the very course that first inspired my interest in both strategy and teaching,” he said. “Having the opportunity to teach that same course a few years later was incredibly rewarding.”

The course covered many of the foundational concepts in strategic management, including industry analysis, competitive positioning, corporate strategy, international strategy and strategic decision making.

“My teaching philosophy centers on designing learning experiences that are purposeful, engaging, and directly applicable beyond the classroom,” Render said. “I want students to become comfortable with ambiguity, recognize that complex problems rarely have a single correct answer, and learn how to support their conclusions with sound reasoning and evidence.”

For Render, winning the Ph.D. Teaching Award was validating.

“Teaching is one of the primary reasons I decided to pursue a Ph.D., so receiving recognition from the college reinforced that I was developing the skill set I hoped to build as an educator,” he said. “Professionally, it gave me confidence that the time and intentionality I invested in designing an engaging, discussion-based classroom translated into a meaningful learning experience for my students.”

Render would like to recognize Lutz and R. Perry Frankland Professor David Gaddis Ross for the profound impact they had on his development as a teacher and scholar.

“I would like to thank Dr. Richard Lutz, whose Ph.D. teaching seminar provided practical strategies and pedagogical techniques that significantly influenced how I approached course design, student engagement and classroom instruction.”

Ross is the professor who taught Strategic Management while Render was an undergraduate.

“His passion for the subject, genuine investment in his students, and Socratic, discussion-based teaching style fundamentally changed how I viewed learning from something I felt obligated to do into something I genuinely wanted to engage with,” he said. “That experience not only sparked my interest in strategic management but also shaped the type of educator I aspire to become.”

---

Kaiyu Zhang (Ph.D. ’27) | ISM3255 Business Systems II

Kaiyu Zhang is a Ph.D. candidate in Information Systems and Operations Management at the University of Florida Warrington College of Business. Before beginning her Ph.D., Zhang earned a Bachelor of Arts in Accounting from Shanghai University of International Business and Economics and a Master of Science in Business Analytics from the University of Rochester Simon Business School.

Her research focuses on emerging digital technologies and their impact on user behavior on digital platforms.

“Understanding these effects is increasingly important as new technologies become more deeply integrated into people’s everyday activities and decision-making,” she said. “I hope my research can help users and platform operators better understand the opportunities and unintended consequences of new technologies and make more informed decisions about their design and implementation.”

Her work has been published in Information Systems Research, a leading academic journal in the field of information systems. She has also been selected to participate in several doctoral consortia at major academic conferences, including the Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS) and the Production and Operations Management Society (POMS) Conference.

In fall 2025, Zhang taught ISM3255 Business Systems II.

The course focused on Java programming and object-oriented programming, covering topics such as classes and objects, inheritance, polymorphism and other fundamental programming concepts.

“My teaching philosophy is to create an interactive classroom where students are encouraged to ask questions, actively engage in problem-solving and practice. I hope students left the course not only with stronger programming skills, but also with greater confidence in their ability to approach and solve technical problems.”

She decided to teach Business Systems II because she enjoys programming and wanted to help students develop technical skills that can be valuable in their future careers.

This was Zhang’s first time teaching a course independently.

“Receiving the award was a meaningful recognition of my teaching and gave me greater confidence in my ability as an educator,” she said. “It made me feel that all my efforts had paid off, including the time I devoted to preparing for the course, supporting my students and continuously improving my teaching throughout the semester.”

Zhang would like to thank her advisor, PricewaterhouseCoopers ISOM Professor Liangfei Qiu, for his continued support throughout her Ph.D. journey. She would also like to thank Lecturer and Grammar Coordinator Patrick Klager, who teaches EAP5856 Academic Spoken English for International Teaching Assistants, for helping her learn how to become a more effective instructor and better engage with students in the classroom.

“Finally, I would like to thank the senior Ph.D. students and alumni in our program, who generously shared their teaching experiences and advice with me as I prepared to teach my own course.”