The 32nd Annual Doctoral Awards Banquet

On Wednesday, May 16, 2012 doctoral students, faculty and guests celebrated the achievements of the 2011-2012 academic year. It was a night to recognize students at the Robert H. Smith School of Business for academic milestones and extra achievements, as well as honoring doctoral students with awards.

Upon welcoming everyone to the banquet, Dean Anandalingam spoke about the success of the PhD Program and recognized the hard work of the students by the increase in conference presentations as well as Financial Times placements.

PhD Program Director, Dr. Amna Kirmani followed by recognizing doctoral students who had achieved the following milestones: advancement to candidacy, conference presentations, dissertation proposal defenses, internal and/or external awards, and publications in “A” journals. Kirmani also acknowledged the graduates from August 2011, December 2011 and May 2012 graduates, as well as job placements.

The evening continued with the announcement of our annual doctoral student awards’ recipients. The winners are as follows:

Allan N. Nash Outstanding Doctoral Student Award

• Seth Carnahan – Strategic Management
• Anastasiya Zavyalova – Strategic Management

Frank T. Paine Award for Academic Achievement

• Jordan Etkin – Marketing
• Jiseon Shin – Organizational Behavior

Abraham Golub Memorial for Dissertation Proposal Prize

• Dilek Gunnec – Operations Management/Management Science

Marvin A. Jolson Outstanding Doctoral Marketing Student

• Heather Johnson – Marketing

Smith also celebrated the achievements of its alumni by awarding the 2012 Allan N. Nash Outstanding Doctoral Alumni Award to Riki Takeuchi (Organizational Behavior ’03). Takeuchi is an associate professor within the School of Management at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). The nomination recognized Takeuchi for his strong scholarship background and editorial contributions. Takeuchi has already received the Distinguished Early Career Contributions Award from the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (2010) as well as awards from HKUST.

To further complete the evening, the Smith School of Business Association for Doctoral Students (ADS) President Elizabeth Campbell-Bush spoke about the community building lunches and events, including the February ski trip, the winter basketball games and their participation in the intramural sports on campus. She also thanked the 2011-2012 ADS officers and welcomed the new 2012-2013 ADS officers.

ADS Vice-President Brad Greenwood kept the festivities going with their faux awards, “the Smithies.” These awards added great entertainment as students were recognized for such categories as “most likely to receive tenure early,” “best office,” “most likely to keep Starbucks in business,” “most dramatic improvement in professionalism,” “comeback player of the year” and a few more. The presentation of “the Smithies” was more than entertaining and a great wrap up in recognizing the student’s hard work.

The evening would not be complete without thanking important people who are heavily involved in the success of the PhD Program. Kirmani personally thanked Debra Shapiro (PhD Program Director 2008-2011) for helping to ease the transition and acknowledging Shapiro’s success in the program before completing the three year term. Kirmani also acknowledged the PhD Task Force committee members, who were commissioned by the dean to evaluate the programs and make recommendations to further enhance the program. Gratitude was expressed to alumni newsletter editor Prem Swaroop, PhD Program Faculty Representatives, the dean’s office and all the doctoral faculty and business school departments who give their time and efforts to the students and the office.