Faculty Kudos and PhD Program

William DeWitt has been named Professor of the Practice of Logistics, Transportation, and Supply Chain Management, an appointment given by the University of Maryland to individuals who have demonstrated excellence in the practice as well as leadership in specific fields. The appointment recognizes deWitt’s regional and national prominence in the field and superior teaching.

Anil Gupta, Ralph J. Tyser Professor of Strategy and Organization, joined the Advisory Board of Asia Silicon Valley Connection, one of the two largest networking organizations based in Silicon Valley (San Mateo, CA) and dedicated to nurturing entrepreneurs and new high technology ventures that leverage the US-Asia connection. It should be cool since other advisory board members include some of the top name VCs and entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley.

Wendy Moe, assistant professor of marketing, was elected to be chair of the Section of Marketing and Statistics in the American Statistical Association for 2007.

Rebecca Ratner, associate professor of marketing, won the “Influential Article Award” from the Academy of Management (Conflict Management division), for her paper “Disparity Between the Actual and Assumed Power of Self-Interest,” published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Roland Rust, David Bruce Smith Chair of Marketing and chair of the marketing department, received a Highly Commended Paper Award, awarded for the 2005 International Journal of Service Industry Management article, “The Business Value of E-Government for Small Firms,” (with Debora Viana Thompson, PhD ’06, and Jeffrey Rhoda of IBM). The award, chosen by the journal’s editorial review board, is given to the top four articles of the year.

Rachelle Sampson, assistant professor of logistics, business and public policy, was elected to the Executive Committee of the Business Policy and Strategy Division at the Academy of Management.

PhD Program

The Smith School PhD program, which was ranked #25 globally and #18 in the U.S. by the Financial Times in 2006, is producing scholars who go on to teach at top-ranked institutions around the world. Over the past five years, roughly 99 percent of Smith’s PhD students have been successfully placed directly after they graduate—about 80 percent as tenure track assistant professors at an accredited university, and the rest as researchers in either private or government organizations. Recent placements include:

• David Cantor; logistics, business and public policy, Pennsylvania State University;
• Jay Carson, management and organization, Southern Methodist University;
• Jason Kuruzovich, decision and information technologies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute;
• Tashfeen Sohail, accounting and information assurance, Instituto de Empresa in Madrid;
• Debora Viana Thompson, marketing, Georgetown University;
• Liu Yang, finance, University of California, Los Angeles.

Thompson received the American Marketing Association’s John Howard Doctoral Dissertation Award and was named one of three winners of the Marketing Science Institute’s Alden Clayton Doctoral Dissertation Proposal Competition, the only person in the last 10 years to have won both awards.

The research of Smith’s PhD students and their faculty collaborators has also received significant recognition, publishing in top journals. Recent publications include:

• Academy of Management Journal
• Organization Science
• Strategic Management Journal
• Academy of Management Review
• Journal of Applied Behavioral Science
• Human Resource Management Review
• Journal of Business
• Management Science
• Marketing Science
• Journal of Consumer Research
• Quantitative Marketing and Economics
• Communications of the ACM
• Journal of Marketing Research
• Harvard Business Review
• Journal of Accounting and Public Policy
• Transportation Journal
• Journal of Business Logistics

At the May 18, 2006, Doctoral Awards Banquet, the Smith School honored PhD students for exceptional achievements.

Frank T. Paine Award for Academic Achievement — Ioannis Gamvros, Shweta Oza, Michael Pfarrer, Xiaomeng Zhang

Allan N. Nash Outstanding Doctoral Student — Tashfeen Sohail

Abraham Golub Memorial Dissertation Proposal Prize — Daliborka Stanojevic

Marvin A. Jolson Outstanding Marketing Student — Debora Viana Thompson

Gerald and Deana Stempler Competition for Research Related for Family Owned/Controlled Businesses — Jason Kuruzovich

For more information about the Smith School’s PhD program, visit www.rhsmith.umd.edu/doctoral. For a broader view of Smith’s current research, including award-winning papers by Smith’s PhD students, visit www.rhsmith.umd.edu/research.