Department Notes: Spring 2022

Economics

Jose Fernandez has contributed a chapter, “Health and healthcare delivery in Puerto Rico before and after Hurricane Maria” in Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico: Disaster, Vulnerability & Resilience, edited by Havidán Rodríguez, Marie T. Mora, and Alberto Dávila. It’s published by Rowman & Littlefield.

Elizabeth Munnich is a co-investigator on a project that was awarded a $1.2 million, 3-year R01 grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The study will examine whether ambulatory surgery centers provide high-quality care for pediatric dental surgical procedures that is less costly than the same procedures provided in hospitals. The project team includes researchers from the RAND Corporation, the University of Louisville, and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Management & Entrepreneurship

For the second year in a row, The Princeton Review has ranked the Innovation MBA and PhD in Entrepreneurship/Innovation as a top graduate program in entrepreneurship (#33). 

Online MBA

In its first year of ranking eligibility, U.S. News & World Report has named the UofL Online MBA program among the best in the nation. It was ranked #42 in Best Online MBA Programs (tie), and #29 in Best Online MBA Programs for Veterans (tie). Further, our undergrad degree was listed #26 Best Online Bachelor’s in Business Programs (tie).

Information Systems, Analytics, & Operations

DR. MANJU AHUJA NAMED A 2021 AIS FELLOW AWARD RECIPIENT

Being named a Fellow is one of the highest academic honors faculty members can receive, as it is recognition by their peers of extraordinary contributions to the discipline in research, teaching, and service. Manju was formally recognized on December 13 at AIS’s International Conference on Information Systems in Austin, Texas. We had an opportunity to talk with Dr. Ahuja about the AIS announcement.

UofL: What does it mean to you to be named a 2021 AIS Fellow Award recipient?

Dr. Manju Ahuja: It feels wonderful and humbling to be recognized by my peers in this way. I have always been passionate about this profession and the related research and scholarship on their own merits, but when such recognition comes, it naturally feels good.

But what makes this particularly special to me is that the Association for Information Systems (AIS) was established in 1994 at the initiative of one of the faculty members at the University of Pittsburgh when I was getting my doctorate. Not only that, the inaugural conference (AMCIS or the Americas Conference on Information Systems) was held at our university in my final year, and I got to be a proceedings editor and gofer at this conference. So to be recognized by them 25 years later is really meaningful.

UofL: The AIS Fellow Award recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions to information systems in the areas of research, teaching, and service—which of these areas do you personally identify with the most and why?

MA: In some ways, this is like having to choose among your children;  but if I really had to choose, I would say research. That said, each has its own rewards. Research is personal to me because I have always chosen to work on issues that matter to me personally. For example, as a working mother, I deeply care about work-life balance challenges, and so it felt incredibly rewarding to conduct research on these issues. I also immensely enjoy serving and working with my professional community–many of these colleagues are like family to me. However, both of these bring distant rewards and delayed gratification. Teaching and interactions with students are sources of immediate satisfaction. This is where we truly make a difference in people’s lives.

UofL: Beyond the field, whose insights and contributions did you look to fuel your work in research, teaching, and service?

MA: Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s work on gender, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s work on flow, and Daniel Kahnman’s work on thinking fast and slow have strongly influenced my thinking and my research.

In all these areas, and in life, I follow Tara Brach for her teaching on mindfulness, compassion, and sincerity. Her books such as Radical Acceptance and Trusting the Gold have been guiding lights for me. I go to bed with one of her meditations every night.