Doctoral Faculty Profiles

John DeNigris has been a faculty member at University of Phoenix for more than 10 years. He has over 27 years of experience in management, marketing and finance within Fortune 500 companies. He holds a Ph.D. in Management with a concentration in Organizational Development and Management.

At the University, John teaches online and in Orlando, Florida. He brings to the classroom expertise in marketing, finance, strategic management, research and leadership models.

John is currently Chief Financial Officer and Managing Partner of DeNigris Strong & Associates, which serves as a human performance technologies solution provider. In his past work, he coordinated national media campaigns and managed international finances for specialty products and corporate-wide publicity and merchandizing initiatives.

John has been awarded more than 26 management awards in the past 25 years. By 2006, he had been honored with three Faculty of the Year awards from multiple universities.

Leona Lobell holds a Ph.D. from the School of Arts and Sciences at New York University and teaches courses both online and on campus in the School of Advanced Studies (SAS) at University of Phoenix, where she also serves as a mentor and dissertation committee member for doctoral students. She has spent 30 years in the career fields of communications, editing and publishing.

She is the founding managing editor for the SAS Journal of Leadership Studies, an award-winning quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes research and theoretical contributions that bridge the gap between scholarship and practice and exemplify critical inquiry into contemporary leadership organizational issues and paradigms. She's also a member of the SAS Global Academic Council.

Leona is conducting her own research on mentoring doctoral students with a special emphasis on underserved populations.

Ruby Rouse has held a variety of leadership positions in business and higher education and currently teaches in the School of Advanced Studies (SAS) and the School of Business. She holds a doctoral degree in marketing communication from the University of Connecticut, a master's degree in speech from the University of Houston and a bachelor's degree in journalism from Texas A&M University.

Ruby has more than 17 years of experience working as a director of marketing for various organizations, including a million-dollar dental practice as well as a private investment firm. As a Certified Advanced Facilitator at University of Phoenix, she teaches courses in marketing, communication and research. In 2007, she was selected as the SAS Faculty of the Year. In 2008, she chaired the doctoral committee for the dissertation that was named SAS Quantitative Dissertation of the Year.

Her current research focuses on the return on investment of higher education. Prior research included development of the Supervisor Leadership and Communication Inventory (SLCI), a diagnostic tool she developed to measure the influence of supervisor leadership and communication on employee behavior. In 2009, she received a national faculty grant to study leadership during the financial crisis.

Ruby has published in the areas of marketing, research, communication and health care. Her articles have been featured in the Journal of Behavioral Medicine, Journal of Leadership Studies, Health Marketing Quarterly, Health Communication and Journal of Professional Services Marketing.