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About ICS

Founded in 2010, the Institute for Compensation Studies seeks to bridge between academic researchers and compensation practitioners to improve pay practices and societal outcomes through applied and translational research, training the talent pipeline, and expanding understanding around compensation and rewards to work.

We consider compensation broadly defined, to include all the monetary and nonmonetary (intangible) rewards that people receive for doing the work they do, in any location or employment structure. We are concerned with how rewards to work influence outcomes for companies and industries, as well as individuals and economies, worldwide.

ICS conducts cross-disciplinary research, provides student research mentorship, supports continuing education for professionals interested in pay practices, and convenes an Executives Forum network for corporate leads of total rewards. Learn more.

Leadership

ICS Leadership brings together the best of interdisciplinary scholars of compensation with Cornell's renowned outreach expertise to build a community with practitioners and those who aspire to become compensation specialiists.

Diane Burton

  • Academic Director, Institute for Compensation Studies
  • Joseph R. Rich ’80 Professor, Human Resource Studies
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Diane is an organizational sociologist. She has served as ICS' Academic Director since 2021 in addition to her professorial appointment in ILR's Human Resource Studies department and courtesy appointments in organizational behavior and sociology.

Linda Barrington, Ph.D.

  • Executive Director
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Dr. Linda Barrington is an economic historian, Associate Dean of Strategy and Societal Impact for the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business at Cornell University, and Executive Director of ILR’s Institute for Compensation Studies.

Brian Dunn

  • Director of Professional Programs
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Brian Dunn is ICS' Director of Professional Programs and a lecturer in the ILR School.

Associates

Linda Amuso

  • ICS Executive in Residence
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Linda Amuso is an expert in the field of executive and employee compensation design for the technology and life sciences industries. She is a Senior Partner at Aon and is recent past-Chairpers

Allen Jackson

  • ICS Executive in Residence
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Allen spent 24 years in compensation consulting at Willis Towers Watson (formerly Towers Perrin) concluding his career as a Managing Principal.

Stephen O'Byrne

  • ICS Executive in Residence
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Stephen F O’Byrne is President and co-founder of Shareholder Value Advisors Inc., a consulting firm that helps companies increase shareholder value through better performance measurement, incentive