Multi-Unit Restaurant Management

Dr. Cervantes Lee is a passionate hospitality business professor at UNLV Lee Business School and an instructor in business planning, entrepreneurship, and business research at the Singelyn Graduate School of Business at Cal Poly Pomona. Dr. Lee also serves as Executive Director of Asian Innovation Hub (AIH), in partnership with Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center. 

Since Spring 2022, Dr. Lee has served as the inaugural faculty member for the multi-unit restaurant management program at the UNLV Hospitality College, supported by a generous $5 million gift from the co-founding couple of Panda Express. Affectionately known as the “Panda Professor” at UNLV, he teaches undergraduate, capstone, internship, graduate, and executive courses related to the field. He has taught courses or lectures for Institut Paul Bocuse (France), Emlyon Business School (France), Tsinghua University (China), China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), University of Southern California, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and National Taiwan University. 

Before transitioning to academia, Dr. Lee accumulated over $100 billion in assets during a 20-year career in principal investment. His experience spans various sectors, including hospitality real estate, locationbased businesses, and consumer technologies. His career contributions include roles at Beike Holdings (NYSE: BEKE), Redbridge Student House, Panda Express, Peking University Founder Group, CBRE Investors (NYSE: CBRE), AIG Global Real Estate (NYSE: AIG), and Arthur Andersen’s Corporate Finance. 

In addition to his doctorate in restaurant education from the University of Southern California (2021), Dr. Lee holds an M.S. in Real Estate Development from MIT (2008), an MBA in Finance (2001), and a BA in Economics (1997) from National Taiwan University. He also served as a second lieutenant and transportation officer in the ROC (Taiwan) Navy for two years (2001-2003). 

He served as President of the MIT Club of Southern California from 2018 to 2019 and currently serves as an MIT Educational Counselor (2021-2027 term), recruiting high school applicants in Southern California. In 2014, he became only the second professional to achieve all five designations from the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC), a 60,000+ member organization. He was also a faculty member of ICSC University from 2012 to 2015. Additionally, he obtained a Certificate in Hotel Real Estate Investments and Asset Management from Cornell University in 2018 and Certification in Hotel Industry Analytics (CHIA) in 2019.

Dr. Linchi Kwok is a Top 2% Scientist, an author, and a full professor at The Collins College of Hospitality Management at California State Polytechnic University Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona), where he exemplifies the university’s teacher-scholar model. Dr. Kwok has distinguished himself through high-impact scholarly activities in the global hospitality community, innovative research and teaching approaches, and exceptional citizenship behaviors in the organizations he serves. In 2024, Dr. Kwok became the first faculty at his college to receive the Provost Award for Excellence in Scholarly and Creative Activities at Cal Poly Pomona. 

Dr. Kwok’s research interests include hospitality management, service marketing, and information technology. Between 2010 and 2024, he submitted over 30 grant applications and received more than $170,000 in internal and external funds to support his scholarly work. His research often appears in top-tier journals, such as the International Journal of Hospitality Management (IJHM), International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management (IJCHM), Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research (JHTR), and Cornell Hospitality Quarterly (CHQ), including several highly cited and downloaded papers. Reflecting the quality of his work, he serves on the editorial boards of IJHM (as a corresponding editor), IJCHM, JHTR, and CHQ. 

Beyond academia, Dr. Kwok is widely recognized as a thought leader in hospitality and tourism. He regularly contributes content to media outlets, including HospitalityNet.org, the No. 1 ranked website for the global hospitality community. His insights are regularly circulated through email newsletters to professional organizations. Besides interviews on TV and radio stations, his perspectives have also been quoted in mainstream media, such as The LA Times, Condé Nast Traveler, National Geographic, and NBC News. 

Dr. Kwok’s scholarly and creative activities have also provided immersive learning experiences for students. He was recognized as a COOL (Celebrating Outstanding Opportunities for Learning) Professor at Cal Poly Pomona in 2014. He developed and led a study abroad program in Thailand. He developed and taught a “Learn through Discovery: Signature Polytechnic Experiences (PolyX)” class, advising student teams to compete in the CoStar (STR) Global Student Market Study Competition. His student teams have won numerous prizes in the competition since their debut in 2019.

Dr. Kwok is an exceptional team player. He has developed and taught over 20 undergraduate and graduate new courses at Cal Poly Pomona. During Cal Poly Pomona’s quarter-to-semester conversion process, Dr. Kwok successfully led the college's Curriculum Committee in restructuring its curriculum. His tenure as Chair of Collins’ Retention, Tenure, and Promotion (RTP) Committee between 2019 and 2021 was marked by significant revisions to the College’s RTP document (2020/21 - 2024/25). He then served on the University RTP Committee between 2022 and 2024. He was a Senator and a member of the Executive Committee at the University's Academic Senate between 2019 and 2022. 

Before joining Cal Poly Pomona, Dr. Kwok was a tenure track faculty member of hospitality management at Syracuse University (SU), where he was named a Kauffman Professor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation (2011 – 2013) to support the university’s initiatives in teaching and research excellence in entrepreneurship and innovation. In addition, he taught at the Rochester Institute of Technology and Texas Tech University (TTU). Internationally, he is (was) a visiting professor at RMUTT (Rajamangala University of Technology Thanyaburi) in Thailand and Sun Yet Sen Business School in mainland China (AACSB-, EQUIS-, and AMBA-accredited). 

Dr. Kwok holds an M.S. and a Ph.D. degree in Hospitality Administration from TTU and an MBA degree from SU. His professional portfolio also includes several years of managerial and hands-on experience in the hospitality industry in the U.S. and mainland China, where he gained practical knowledge and skills that he now imparts to his students.