Honor Roll: Foster faculty recognized for outstanding achievements in 2020

Even in this pandemic-altered year, faculty members of the UW Foster School of Business have earned numerous awards, accolades and appointments for excellence in research, teaching and leadership in 2020. Here are some highlights, from Agrawal to Zuzul:


Nidhi Agrawal
Michael G. Foster Endowed Professor of Marketing

Named an MSI Scholar by the prestigious Marketing Science Institute, one of three faculty members of Foster’s Department of Marketing and International Business to be recognized among the most-influential marketing scholars in the world this year for her extensive work in consumer behavior.


Bruce Avolio
Professor of Management, Mark Pigott Chair in Business Strategic Leadership, Director of the Center for Leadership and Strategic Thinking

Listed in the top .06 percent of nearly 7 million scientific researchers in the world by volume of citations, according to an index generated by Stanford University. Also ranked #25 among more than 36,000 researchers in the category of business and management. Additional Foster faculty listed among the world’s top 1.5 percent of researchers across the sciences include Jonathan Karpoff, Jarrad Harford, Suresh Kotha, Robert Palmatier, Charles Hill, Terence Mitchell (emeritus), Thomas Jones (emeritus) and Xiao-Ping Chen.


Chris Barnes
Professor of Management, Evert McCabe Endowed Fellow

Received the Cummings Scholarly Achievement Award from the Organizational Behavior Division of the Academy of Management for his ability to establish a “strong and unique identity at the intersection of management and sleep health” early in his career. He was also selected a fellow of the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP).


Elizabeth Blankespoor
Associate Professor of Accounting, Reimers Endowed Faculty Fellow

Named an Outstanding Reviewer by The Accounting Review, recognizing the top three percent of reviewers contributing to the discipline’s preeminent academic journal (which she now serves as editor). Blankespoor was also ranked #32 in the world in contributions to financial accounting research over the past six years.


Bill Bradford
Professor Emeritus of Finance

Honored by the creation of the Bradford-Osborne Research Award, the first national recognition of scholarly research that can accelerate the growth of businesses owned by people of color, and a suitable legacy of the former Foster School dean (and UCLA colleague Al Osborne) renowned for scholarship, leadership and advocacy for the development of minority business.


Xiao-Ping Chen
Philip M. Condit Endowed Chair in Business Administration, Professor of Management

Appointed editor-in-chief of the journal Management and Organization Review, beginning 2022. The prolific scholar and former associate dean of academic and faculty affairs is founding editor of Management Insights and former editor of Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.


Ed deHaan
Associate Professor of Accounting, Michael G. Foster Faculty Fellow

Serving as chair of the Deloitte/American Accounting Association annual Doctoral Consortium (from 2019 to 2022), a prestigious convocation of 100 most-promising accounting PhD students from around the world. DeHaan also was ranked #17 in the world for individual contributions to financial accounting research over the past six years.


Alicia DeSantola
Assistant Professor of Management and Organization

Won the Industry Studies Association Dissertation Award for her important doctoral work on new venture growth (which also was a finalist for the Heizer Dissertation Award in New Enterprise Development and on the shortlist for the Grigor McClelland Doctoral Dissertation Award).


Debabrata Dey
Marion B. Ingersoll Professor of Information Systems

Named a Distinguished Fellow of the INFORMS Information Systems Society—a wing of preeminent international organization of practitioners in the fields of operations research, management science and analytics—for his outstanding record of research impact, intellectual leadership and mentorship.


Weili Ge
Moss Adams Endowed Professor of Accounting

Served as chair of the American Accounting Association’s New Faculty Consortium (2019-2020), an event, sponsored by the EY Foundation, that brings 120 new accounting faculty from around the country together with 27 senior faculty for coaching on teaching, research and career planning. Ge also was ranked #83 in the world for individual contributions to financial accounting research over the past 12 years.


Natalie Mizik
Professor of Marketing, J. Gary Shansby Endowed Chair in Marketing Strategy

Received the 2020 Robert D. Buzzell Best Paper Award from the Marketing Science Institute for the lasting impact of her study illuminating how equity incentives tempt CEOs and CMOs to engage in “myopic marketing management” for short-term results at the expense of long-term business performance.


Rob Palmatier
Professor of Marketing, John C. Narver Endowed Professor in Business Administration, Research Director of the Center for Sales and Marketing Strategy

Received the 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Interorganizational Special Interest Group of the American Marketing Association for his sustained and significant contributions to interorganizational research and service to the academy and profession—including through his Center for Sales and Marketing Strategy.


Oliver Rutz
Marion B. Ingersoll Professor, Associate Professor of Marketing

Named an MSI Scholar by the prestigious Marketing Science Institute, one of three faculty members of Foster’s Department of Marketing and International Business to be recognized among the most-influential marketing scholars in the world this year for his work in search engine marketing and online advertising.


Kira Schabram
Assistant Professor of Management

Recognized as one of the Favorite Business Professors of The Class of 2020 by Poets & Quants for Undergrads, based on her preparation and passionate teaching or organizational behavior and going “the extra mile to help her students succeed.”


Sorah Seong
Assistant Professor of Management

Named among this year’s Top 50 Undergraduate Business Professors by Poets & Quants for her empowering ability to make students “co-captains” of her courses in entrepreneurship and strategic management. This also earned her a nomination for the UW Distinguished Teaching Award.


Jeff Shulman
Marion B. Ingersoll Professor of Marketing

Named a Faculty Fellow for the 2020 American Marketing Association-Sheth Foundation Doctoral Consortium. Shulman also produced the seventh season of the award-winning Seattle Growth Podcast, exploring the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the region.


Masha Shunko
Assistant Professor of Operations Management

Received the 2020 PACCAR Award for Excellence in Teaching, the Foster School’s highest teaching honor, for her indelible ability to demystify the nuances of operations management and supply chain management with passion and clarity both in the classroom and, during the pandemic, online.


Michael Wagner
Associate Professor of Operations Management, Neal and Jan Dempsey Endowed Faculty Fellow

Recruited by Amazon to serve as a 2020 Amazon Scholar, using his crowdsourcing and optimization expertise to support the company’s Amazon Flex Division responsible for crowdsourcing rapid delivery for Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods and Prime Same Day.


photo of hemaHema Yoganarasimhan
Professor of Marketing, Michael G. Foster Faculty Fellow

Received the 2020 Erin Anderson Award from the American Marketing Association for exemplary research and mentorship. She also was named a Marketing Science Institute (MSI) Scholar, one of three Foster faculty to be recognized among the most influential marketing scholars in the world for her work in quantitative marketing.


Tiona Zuzul
Assistant Professor of Management`

Received the inaugural Research Methods Paper Prize from the Strategic Management Society, honoring her qualitative study discerning how the FBI successfully transformed itself from a law enforcement agency to an intelligence organization after 9/11.


The Foster School’s Department of Management and Organization faculty.

Foster faculty

Ranked #6 in the world (and #1 among public universities) for research productivity in Financial Times 2020 Global MBA Rankings, the gold standard of scholarly indices. Foster has been listed among the world’s top 25 in research every year since FT began tracking scholarly output: #24 in 2014, #24 in 2015, #16 in 2016, #7 in 2017, #3 in 2018, #7in 2019 and #6 in 2020.

The Department of Management and Organization is ranked #4 in the nation for research output over the past three years in the current Management Department Productivity Ranking.

The Department of Finance and Business Economics is ranked #10 in the world for research impact in the Academic Ranking of World Universities.

The Department of Marketing and International Business is ranked #12 for research output over the past four years, according to the Top 100 Business School Research Rankings out of UT-Dallas.

The Department of Information Systems and Operations Management is ranked #13 for research productivity over the past three years, according to the Top 100 Business School Research Rankings out of UT-Dallas.

The Department of Accounting is ranked #16 in the world for overall research output—and #7 for financial accounting research—over the past six years in this year’s Accounting Rankings compiled by BYU.

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