Three of My Former Isenberg PhD Students (All Females) Received Promotion and Tenure This Past Year

This has been a remarkable year in that, since last spring, three of my former Isenberg School of Management PhD students: Shivani Shukla, Dong "Michelle" Li, and Sara Saberi, all received promotions to Associate Professor with tenure at their home institutions, which are, respectively: the University of San Francisco (USF), Babson College, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). Both Babson and WPI are in the state of Massachusetts.

Shivani is now the Program Director of the Business Analytics Major and Minor at the School of Management at the University of San Francisco. Michelle is a faculty member at Babson's Academic Division: Mathematics, Analytics, Science, and Technology. Sara is a faculty member at the School of Business at WPI and a year ago was named the Norton Assistant Professor. Shivani was notified in April 2023 and USF issued a press release on all the promotion and tenure awards. Michelle was notified of the good news last December, when her colleagues surprised her with a party. Sara heard in February her good news. WPI issued a press release on the promotions and tenure.

They are my 18th, 19th, and 20th PhD students and I have chaired the dissertation committees of three other PhD students. More information on their dissertations can be found on the Supernetwork Center site.

Congratulations to these outstanding Isenberg School PhD alumnae, who continue a great legacy of  research and education. 

Below is my and their academic genealogy, which includes Maxwell, Newton, and Galileo, by way of my PhD advisor at Brown University Stella Dafermos. We are truly standing on the shoulders of giants.

Now for Some Great News -- 3 Isenberg PhDs in Management Science Receive Promotion and Tenure

With the new academic year upon us and with so much happening in the world, I thought that it would be inspirational to share some great news.

For this blogpost, I am wearing my "Academic Mom" hat as the chair of doctoral students' dissertations.

Getting a PhD is one milestone, getting a good job afterwards is another, and getting promotion and tenure, yet another big achievement.

2012 has been quite an eventful year for several graduates of our Isenberg School of Management PhD track in Management Science program at UMass Amherst, but, then again, I am biased, since I was their dissertation chair.

I always say that "Good news happens in threes."

Earlier, I had shared that my former doctoral student, Dr. Jose M. Cruz (with the 5 UMass Amherst degrees) had been named an Ackerman Scholar. He has also  been promoted to Associate Professor with tenure at the School of Business at the University of Connecticut Storrs. He is now the Interim Director of the Business Analytics and Project Management Master's program at UConn.


In addition, Dr. Ke "Grace" Ke was also promoted to Associate Professor with tenure at the College of Business at Central Washington University. She was also my doctoral student at the Isenberg School.

And, just this past week, my former doctoral student, Dr. Fuminori Toyasaki, informed me that he was  promoted to Associate Professor with tenure at the School of Administrative Studies at York University in Toronto, Canada. Prior to joining the faculty at York University, he had had a two year fabulous postdoc at McGill University in Montreal and worked there with our esteemed colleagues, Professor Vedat Verter and Professor Tamer Boyaci.

In the photo above, from a few years back, I am standing with (l-r) Dr. Fuminori Toyasaki, Dr. Tina Wakolbinger (who is now a Full Professor at the Vienna University of Economics and Business), Dr. Ke "Grace" Ke, Dr. Jose M. Cruz, celebrating the visit of Dr. Patrizia Daniele of Italy nd her husband, along with Dr. Dmytro Matsypura (who a year or so ago received tenure at the University of Sydney), and Dr. Zugang "Leo" Liu of Penn State University Hazleton.

It is great to see Operations Research and Management Science thriving!

You can find the titles of their PhD dissertations and the abstracts, along with links to several of their publications on the Supernetworks website.


 

Congrats to Another Female Management Scientist and Operations Researcher on Promotion and Tenure

I received an email this morning with a copy of the official letter attached.

One of my former doctoral students, Dr. Ke "Grace" Ke, who had done very interesting work on financial networks, which are of particular relevance these days because of the financial crisis and systemic risk issues, shared the great news with me.

She has been promoted to Associate Professor with tenure at the Department of Finance and Supply Chain Management at the School of Business at Central Washington University.

Ke came from China and received her PhD from the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst with a concentration in Management Science and with a minor in Finance. I was her doctoral dissertation committee chair.

Her dissertation was entitled:, "Statics and Dynamics of Complex Network Systems: Supply Chain Analysis and Financial Networks with Intermediation."

Some of our joint research has appeared in the European Journal of Operational Research, in Quantitative Finance, and in Environment & Planning B.

Dr. Ke managed to even solve the "two body problem" and to relocate from her first academic appointment, post the PhD, which was at the University of Arkansas Monticello, to Washington state, since her husband had positions first at Microsoft and then at Amazon.com. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from UMass Amherst.

Just two months ago, another former doctoral student of mine, Dr. Jose M. Cruz, received his promotion with tenure at the School of Business at the University of Connecticut and was also named an Ackerman Scholar.

2012 is turning out to be a great year for me as an Academic Mom.

It is wonderful to see faculty with expertise in operations research and management science being so successful at business schools!

I am so happy for my former doctoral students, who are now colleagues!