Dr. Matthew Mullarkey is the program director of the Doctor of Business Administration Program and a visiting faculty member in the Information Systems and Decision Sciences Department. He teaches the Case Discussion Publication course to the DBA students and the capstone courses in information systems to MIS and MBA students.

His principal research focus is on information systems and design science related to social enterprise networking within and between organizations, information cyber-security and privacy, digital healthcare data and analytics, monetization of companies' data streams, and the impact of information technology on innovation.

A veteran of the U.S. Army, Mullarkey has more than 25 years of experience as a president, chief executive officer, chief operating officer, and senior vice president in Fortune 500 and in startup companies in the automotive, applied materials and medical device industries. Mullarkey was a corporate officer at two NYSE listed companies, a board member of three private equity controlled companies, and founded two startup companies. He authored a number of case discussions and articles in his areas of research and holds two US patents.

He holds a PhD in Business Administration with a concentration in Information Systems from USF, an MBA from the Moore School at the University of South Carolina, an MS in Systems Management & Operations Research from the University of Southern California, and a BS in Engineering from the United States Military Academy. Mullarkey is a member of several community and professional organizations, including the CEO Council of Tampa Bay, the Tampa Bay Partnership, the Academy of Management, the Association for Information Systems, and the Association for Computing Machinery. Dr. Mullarkey's is currently an editor of Journal of Information Technology Education: Discussion Cases (JITE: DC).

As academics, we tend to view the benefits of integrating research and practice from the researcher's perspective. There is, however, another perspective: that of the industry practitioner. Over the past twenty years business researchers, in particular, have been encouraged to conduct more and more research with a theoretical focus that is often at odds with the conduct of social science research that investigates sticky, wicked problems that interest practice. In his keynote, Dr. Mullarkey will focus on the opportunity to look to scholarly practitioners to span this research gap and generate robust, relevant inquiry that informs the practice and the academic communities alike. He takes the position that professional doctoral programs are beginning to serve the need for research partnerships that bridge the industry-academy divide. As demonstrable proof, Dr. Mullarkey will introduce a number of executives engaged in the Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) degree program at the University of South Florida's Muma College of Business. These individuals will talk about their own personal motivations for undertaking a research-focused degree while continuing to work in their professional pursuits.