Faculty Spotlight: Marianne Wanamaker
Marianne Wanamaker, Ph.D., has been quite busy in her two years with the UT Knoxville College of Business Administration, to say the least. The Martin, TN, native joined the faculty of the college in 2009 after earning her undergraduate degree in math and economics from Vanderbilt and her masters and Ph.D. in economics from Northwestern University. Wanamaker’s earliest professional experience was as a consultant at Bain & Company in Boston, MA, a strategy consulting firm with a diverse global clientele. During her time at Bain, Wanamaker’s focus primarily was on retail and healthcare market strategy and turnaround. After earning her doctorate degree, she moved back to her native Tennessee, bringing her husband, Brian, a criminal defense attorney, and her daughter, Caroline, who is almost three years old.
In the classroom, Wanamaker teaches corporate strategy to MBA students, sharing her experience in the corporate setting. She teaches business ethics to undergraduate students in Economics 300 as well as introductory economics to sophomores who are part of the Global Leadership Scholars program.
Wanamaker served on the faculty of Louisiana State University’s Graduate School of Banking this summer. Her outstanding commitment to her students already has earned her the college’s Allen H. Keally Outstanding Teacher Award and the MBA program’s Outstanding MBA First-Year Faculty Award.
Wanamaker’s research interests include economic history and labor economics, and she specifically studies issues of marriage, death, fertility, divorce, migration, and education in American history. Since her arrival in 2009, she has joined with Matt Murray, Ball Corporation Professor in Business, to launch the Knoxville Economics Forum. The group has hosted a number of high-profile speakers, including Kelly King (CEO of BB&T) and Dennis Lockhart (president and CEO of the Atlanta Federal Reserve). The forum will host U.S. Senator Bob Corker in August.
In Wanamaker’s limited free time, she enjoys running with her German Shepherd/Greyhound mix, Guten Morgen; hiking in the Smoky Mountains; following national politics; and watching college sports.