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K-State Today

Division of Communications and Marketing
Kansas State University
128 Dole Hall
1525 Mid-Campus Drive North
Manhattan, KS 66506
785-532-2535
vpcm@k-state.edu

December 12, 2022

Jacob Duke and Jess Falcone recognized as Professors of the Week

Submitted by Candace LaBerge

Professor of the Week

Jake Duke, teaching assistant professor in management, and Jess Falcone, assistant professor of anthropology, were recognized as Professors of the Week at the Dec. 11 men's home basketball game.

Faculty Senate, the Office of the President, K-State Athletics and the Division of Communications and Marketing wish to recognize their contributions to K-State.

Duke's areas of teaching include entrepreneurial finance, business ethics and business innovation. His areas of research include venture capital financing, social network theory and behavioral theory of the firm.

Duke was recently awarded the 2022 Ralph E. Reitz Outstanding Teaching Award from the College of Business. The award is given annually, following nominations by students and peers and selection by the college's Awards and Recognition Committee.

"Jake has one of the most challenging teaching schedules in the college, spanning three distinct subject areas," said Kevin Gwinner, Edgerley Family dean of the College of Business. "He has done an exceptional job of designing the courses in a way that matches the academic development level of his students. His courses are rigorous and challenging, but also fun and engaging." 

His students also praise him for his willingness to work with them outside of the classroom and for the relevance of the content of his classes to their future careers.

He's been published in Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Academy of Management Proceedings. His research in progress includes: "The Dual Organizational Identities of Social Venture Capital Firms"; "Syndication Network Structures and Tie Search Intensity"; and "Strategic Alliance Networks and Attainment Discrepancy."

Duke received his doctorate and Master of Business Administration from Oklahoma State University and joined Kansas State University in 2020. 

Falcone, a Philadelphia native, joined the K-State faculty just after graduating with a doctorate in sociocultural anthropology from Cornell University in 2010.

Her research is on transnational Asian religious practices and beliefs, and she has worked in India, Tibet and with diaspora communities. Falcone received the Edward C. Dimock Prize in the Indian Humanities for her manuscript, "Battling the Buddha of Love: A Cultural Biography of the Greatest Statue Never Built," which was published as a monograph in 2018 by Cornell University Press. She is currently writing a book about a Japanese American Zen Buddhist community in Kona, Hawaii.

At K-State, Falcone has taught cultural anthropology courses on a range of topics, such as: ethnomusicology; prophecy and apocalypse; art and culture; ethnographic methods; and Asian religions. She is the program coordinator for anthropology and manages the religious studies certificate. In 2020, she was honored with the Ron Gaches Teaching Award for innovative teaching in upper-level undergraduate courses.