Lisa Abendroth is the inaugural Hoffman Melrose Toro Endowed Professor in Marketing Innovation in the Opus College of Business at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. Currently serving as a tenured associate professor, Dr. Abendroth has nearly three decades of experience teaching at the undergraduate, graduate, and executive levels. Her current research interests focus on the competencies business professionals need to succeed in a digital world and the pedagogies that best enable that development.
Dr. Abendroth is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned two bachelor’s degrees in social psychology and economics with a concentration in marketing. She holds a Ph.D. in marketing from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.
Laura Reina has been named a 2026–2027 Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor at Florida State University. The title is the university’s highest faculty honor. Dr. Reina, a Distinguished Research Professor of Physics, has been a faculty member at the university since 1998. She is an internationally recognized leader in high-energy theoretical particle physics whose work focuses on understanding the fundamental building blocks of the universe.
Dr. Reina received her Ph.D. in high-energy theoretical physics from the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy. She completed postdoctoral work at the University of Brussels and Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York
Elizabeth Craig was awarded the UNH Class of 1937 Professorship in Marine Biology at the University of New Hampshire. An affiliate member of the university’s biological science department, Dr. Craig currently directs the Isle of Shoals Seabird Ecology and Conservation Program. In this role, she promotes the conservation of aquatic birds in the Gulf of Maine through management, monitoring, and student-driven research.
A graduate of Columbia University in New York City, Dr. Craig earned her Ph.D. in zoology and wildlife conservation from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
Karin Pfeiffer was named a Gwen Norrell Professor in Youth Sport and Student-Athlete Well-being at Michigan State University, where she serves as an MSU Red Cedar Distinguished Professor and the director of the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports. With a focus on high-level youth hockey players, her current research examines the physical and psychological effects of biobanding, a method of organizing youth sports teams by biological age rather than simply by chronological age.
Dr. Pfeiffer is a two-time graduate of Michigan State University.