New UNM-LA Assistant Dean Dr. Sharon Hurley. Courtesy photo
UNM-LA News:
UNM-Los Alamos is pleased to announce that Dr. Sharon Hurley has accepted the position of Associate Dean of Instruction. Dr. Hurley came to UNM-LA as an accounting and economics professor in 2003. She has served as the Department Chair of Business, Computer Science, and Information Technology since 2014.
As Associate Dean of Instruction, Dr. Hurley will assist the Interim Dean of Instruction, Kay Willerton, in the oversight of course scheduling, curriculum development, faculty hiring and supervision, budget development, fiscal monitoring, and other related administrative activities. She will also work closely with high school Dual Credit programs.
Hurley has a Ph.D. in Accounting, with a minor in Economics, from Texas A&M University. She is licensed as a CPA in Colorado and New Mexico. Hurley first developed an interest in accounting when watching her mom do the bookkeeping for the family business. She attended Brigham Young University in Utah where she earned her undergraduate degree and then attended the University of North Florida for her Master’s Degree in Accounting.
Hurley’s academic career began at Brigham Young University (BYU) where she served as a tenure track professor. Ultimately her family moved to Los Alamos, where she taught independent study classes for BYU, volunteered with the local schools, and taught part time for UNM-LA.
Dr. Hurley’s academic research interests include tax incentives for corporate relocation, ethics of accounting and business students, and how culture impacts the use of technology in international businesses. In the spring of 2016, Hurley was selected to receive the Faculty Initiative Award at UNM-LA. This award provides the opportunity for faculty to pursue original scholarly, professional, technical, or artistic activity. Hurley will use the award to develop an experiential based learning “practice set” for accounting students. This will supplement the activities in the classroom with an introduction to actual business documents and transactions.
Outside of the academic environment, Hurley focuses on her family and their pets. She also enjoys gardening, sewing, and quilting.
As a part of the UNM-LA team, Dr. Hurley notes that she is “proud of the quality of education offered by the university, which results from high quality, dedicated instructors, a diverse student body, and small class sizes.”
To learn more about the numerous programs at UNM-LA, visit http://losalamos.unm.edu.
