New Faculty Highlight: Marvin Nials, Lecturer II

This semester, The James & Gail Ellis School of Business Leadership welcomed six new faculty members and is showcasing their professional experience and academic backgrounds through its New Faculty Series.

Meet Marvin Nials, Lecturer II in the Department of Marketing, Information, and Decision Sciences. A proud double alumnus of the Ellis School of Business Leadership, Nials earned both his Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) and Master of Business Administration (MBA), with a focus on operations management and marketing. Additionally, Nials worked at Ellis as an adjunct professor since January 2023.

This semester, Nials is teaching BUSA 3001 Operations Management and BUSA 4880 Supply Chain Models & Analytics.

“This is my first time teaching both of these classes, and I look forward to being immersed in both the operations management class and the supply chain class. I'm hopeful that I'll get to teach them again in the future and make incremental refinements.”

Nials' research interests center on the impact of employee training and development on business outcomes and employee satisfaction. He is also interested in emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence and virtual twinning, and their potential to reduce training costs and reshape business environments.

In the classroom, Nials hopes to encourage students to look at business through a new
operational lens and recognize how operations management influences everyday experiences.

“My goal is to engage their curiosity for the subject. Wherever I am, I'm thinking about things operationally: How do they do this? How could they make this better? Why are we having to wait, or why isn't this working? Ideally, I want students to make connections, even if they're not going into operations, and realize that operations management might be different than they originally thought."

For Nials, one of the most rewarding aspects of teaching is witnessing the moment when a concept clicks for a student.

“What I enjoy most about teaching is that 'aha' moment. When students say, 'Aha, I just got it,' and you can see it on their faces, or you see it in an email. For me, learning from students is nonstop. There are usually 40 to 60 of them asking questions from different perspectives and getting me to think about things differently."

Beyond the classroom, Nials brings extensive professional experience in business operations. Most recently, he served as a program manager and warehouse management advisor for a firm that contracts with the Department of Energy. He previously worked as a managing member and licensed inspector at Resilient Inspections, LLC.