Yesterday, was a very special day. Deniz Besik, who is
my 22nd PhD student, successfully defended her doctoral dissertation at the Isenberg School of Management. The title of her dissertation is: "Essays on Competitive Perishable Food Supply Chain Networks: From the Impacts of Tariffs and Quotas to Integration of Quality." I had the pleasure of chairing her dissertation committee, which consisted of Professors Ana Muriel and Hari Balasubramanian of the College of Engineering at UMass Amherst and Professor Priyank Arora of my department at the Isenberg School.
Although the defense took place at 3:30PM on a Friday afternoon, the room was packed with Deniz's friends and colleagues and guests who had come to support her. Some had traveled from Boston and NYC to come to support her. Dr. Pritha Dutta, who was my 21st PhD student, and is now a Professor at Pace University, came from NYC.
Deniz in 4 and a half years as a doctoral student published 6 co-authored papers, which is an incredible accomplishment. Below are images of first pages of some of the articles.
Deniz was recognized for her research with the 2019 Outstanding Doctoral Student Researcher Award from the Isenberg School and took part in the INFORMS, POMS, and DSI doctoral colloquia. And, we recently heard that she was elected into the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society. The ceremony will take place in early April and the UMass Amherst graduation in early May (assuming such events will be able to proceed, given the coronavirus).
The audience had great questions, given the timeliness of the dissertation as well as the clarity with which Deniz presented the results in her dissertation. Below is a photo of now Dr. Deniz Besik with her committee members after her defense.
And we managed to take a photo of some of the folks in the audience who stayed until after 5PM to congratulate her.
She was presented with flowers and I also gave her a gift.
Then it was time for a celebratory dinner, which took place at Judie's in downtown Amherst.
Followed by a very special dessert with candle.
I might add that Deniz during her doctoral studies also taught classes and she even served as the President of the
UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter. She has accepted a tenure track Assistant Professorship at the Robins School of Business at the University of Richmond in beautiful Virginia. The rewards of being a faculty member are many, but one of the best is seeing a very deserving and hard-working student achieve her dreams. We all wish Dr. Deniz Besik much continuing professional and personal success as she begins a new chapter as an Assistant Professor!
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