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Jindal School Ranked No. 4 and No. 8 in North American Supply Chain Program Rankings
New rankings show that the master’s and bachelor’s degree programs in supply chain management at the Naveen Jindal School of Management are among the best in North America.
Gartner, a technological research and consulting firm, ranked the Jindal School’s Master of Science in Supply Chain Management STEM program No. 4 among North American universities.
Gartner’s 2022 Top 25 North American Supply Chain Undergraduate Programs report places UTD’s Bachelor of Science in Supply Chain Management at No. 8, up from No. 19 in 2020.
“We’ve sought to create a program that has an end-to-end view of the supply chain, one that offers value for our customers — those companies that end up hiring our graduates,” said Dr. David Widdifield, assistant dean of academic operations at the Jindal School.
Read more about the graduate ranking and the undergraduate ranking on Inside Jindal.
New Executive MS in Management Science Degree Offers Flexibility
The Executive Education Area in the Naveen Jindal School of Management has combined multiple online Executive MBA programs and Executive Masters programs — including a new Master’s in Management Science degree — under one umbrella. The newly restructured Global Leadership programs allow students greater flexibility and the opportunity to connect and engage with a wider network.
The programs are geared toward working professionals, midlevel professionals targeting the executive track, C-Suite executives and aspirants who are looking to fill in some skills gaps, and people who require ample flexibility from a graduate-level program — highly mobile managers, parents or volunteers, for instance.
“Because our programs are fully online, students can participate from anywhere,” said Rhonda Bush, director of the Global Leadership programs. “They can keep up their travel. Or even if they are transferred to a new location, students don’t have to switch programs because they’ve moved away from their college or their university. Students are able to continue with their program and log in from anywhere that has an internet connection.”
Read more about these new offerings on Inside Jindal.
Jindal School Students Pack Nearly 23,000 Meals for the People of Ukraine
Students from the Naveen Jindal School of Management recently participated in a meal-packing event to feed nearly 23,000 people in war-ravaged Ukraine.
The event, held Oct. 31 in the Executive Dining Room at the Jindal School, was organized by students from the Social Impact Marketing (MKT4360) course and Numana, an international hunger-relief nonprofit organization based in El Dorado, Kansas. Jindal School staff also assisted with the event. The students recruited 120 volunteers eager to earn hours toward fulfilling the Jindal School’s 100-hour community-service requirement under the UTDserv initiative.
Taylor Vaughan, a marketing senior, said that when 120 people volunteer at a community-service event such as this one, it can add up to something that can benefit the larger community.
“I think that’s what happened here,” she said. “I think just the little bit of time that was sacrificed by each individual really added up to something that will make a huge impact. It does make a big difference.”
Read more about this accomplishment on Inside Jindal.
Faculty and Research News
Jindal School Professor Awarded for Outstanding Contributions to Information Systems Discipline
The Association for Information Systems has recognized a faculty member in the Naveen Jindal School of Management with the AIS Fellow Award.
Dr. Sumit Sarkar, Charles and Nancy Davidson Chair, Professor of Information Systems and director of the Jindal School’s PhD Programs, was selected by the AIS for having “made outstanding contributions to the information systems discipline in terms of research, teaching and service.”
One of 12 recipients for 2022, Sarkar received the award for his extensive body of research that spans multiple decades. He also has served on editorial boards of leading academic journals including Management Science, Information Systems Research and MIS Quarterly. All three are tracked in The UTD Top 100 Business School Research Rankings™. He also has served as program chair for multiple conferences including the Workshop on Information Technologies and Systems, and the AIS’ International Conference on Information Systems.
Read more about Sarkar’s award on News Center.
Study: How Piracy Can Unravel Company Profits in Product Bundling
In a new study published online Aug. 26 and in the Volume 39, Issue 3 print edition of the Journal of Management Information Systems, a researcher from The University of Texas at Dallas and his colleagues examined the issue of entertainment-product bundling and whether it is profitable in the presence of piracy.
Dr. Atanu Lahiri, associate professor of information systems in the Naveen Jindal School of Management, and his co-authors concluded that bundling actually abets piracy and that the loss of profits from piracy is not offset by the additional income from selling bundled information goods.
Lahiri said bundling is usually effective for zero-marginal-cost products, which are those that can be reproduced at no cost.
“For example, producing a movie costs money, but creating a copy does not cost anything,” he said. “There is no additional cost to the producer or seller if one additional consumer watches it. The same is true for software and other information products. So, naturally, bundling is quite appealing to sellers of information goods.”
Read more about this research on News Center.
Study: Don’t Buy into Theory on Millennials’ Product Preferences
A study by a researcher from The University of Texas at Dallas and his colleagues shows that although millennials buy more craft beer than previous generations, the reason is due to product availability, not millennials’ perceived preference to buy brands that better align with their values or suit their intrinsic tastes
“It is quite striking that most of the generational share gap in beer consumption can be attributed to the differential availability of craft beer, especially when consumers are relatively young,” said Dr. Joonhwi Joo, assistant professor of marketing in the Naveen Jindal School of Management and one of the study’s authors. “When they are young, preferences are more malleable, and once the preference is formed and as people age, they become stickier.”
Read more about this study on News Center.
Study: Has Prescription Monitoring Curbed the Opioid Epidemic?
Mandates designed to decrease opioid prescriptions in the U.S. have worked, but they also have led to an unintended and undesirable public health outcome, according to a recent study from a researcher at The University of Texas at Dallas.
The study, published online July 2 in Production and Operations Management, focused on mandated use of Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs). Many states have implemented policies that require prescribers to check a patient’s prescription history prior to initiating or refilling prescriptions for controlled substances.
Dr. Tongil (TI) Kim, assistant professor of marketing in the Naveen Jindal School of Management, and the study’s co-authors found that in states that mandated PDMP use, opioid prescriptions decreased as intended. The mandates, however, had the unintended effect of driving existing opioid users toward more lethal illicit substitutes, such as heroin.
Read more about this researcher’s work on News Center.
Jindal School Student’s Research Optimizes Post-Disaster Recovery
A study conducted by a student in the Naveen Jindal School of Management proposes utilizing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to optimize efficiency in managing post-disaster operations.
The results of the team’s research were published recently in a paper titled “An integrative framework for coordination of damage assessment, road restoration, and relief distribution in disasters.” The paper was published online by OMEGA – The International Journal of Management Science, a peer-reviewed academic journal. It is slated for print publication in February.
Mohammad Amin Farzaneh, a third-year PhD student in management science with an operations management concentration, and his co-authors shed new light on how the number of casualties can be reduced after major disasters such as the recent Category 4 Hurricane Ian.
“By prepositioning drones and charging stations when we learn what a hurricane’s path will be, we can be in a position to immediately analyze the road networks afterward to see which ones are damaged,” Farzaneh said. “If you discover the damage sooner and repair those bottlenecks faster, then you can transport more relief to the affected people and you can take the highly injured people to the hospitals using this repaired road network or find an alternate route.”
Read more about this student’s research on Inside Jindal.
Student News
Finance Graduate Student Earns Scholarship from Women’s Organization
A graduate student in the Naveen Jindal School of Management is one of six winners of a scholarship offered by a nonprofit organization that helps women thrive in the commercial real estate finance profession.
Riddhima Agarwal, a finance graduate student, is one of six winners of the 2022-2023 RENEW Scholarship Program offered by Real Estate Network Empowering Women (RENEW) Inc. It is the second year in a row that a Jindal School student has won the award. Sine Bueckle, MBA’21, MS’21, won the award in 2021-2022.
“Normally, girls don’t go for such fields as finance or commercial real estate because it is very male-dominated,” Agarwal said. “It takes a very hard decision for a woman to be in it. It is even more male-dominated in India than it is in the U.S.”
Read more about this student on Inside Jindal.
UTD Chapter of Delta Sigma Pi Wins National, Provincial Awards
Students from the Naveen Jindal School of Management’s Chi Psi chapter of the Delta Sigma Pi Professional Business Fraternity recently won two awards for their work in implementing community service and professional development programs.
The national organization, in existence since 1907, includes members of the business community, college students and university alumni, faculty and administrators. The JSOM chapter was formed in 2018.
The fraternity won a national award — Outstanding Professional Activities for a Collegiate Chapter, and a provincial award — Outstanding Service for a Collegiate Chapter.
Mashal Iqbal, a junior double major in global business and marketing, said the organization has given her a platform to be confident and that she is always surrounded by people who want to see her succeed.
“I think there’s kind of a notion in the business world where you’re always [competing] with your peers, and although those may be your best friends, you do feel that you always have to one-up them because the business world is so competitive,” she said. “DSP gives me an environment where I don’t feel that area of competitiveness just because I’m always pushed to succeed by my fellow members. I know they would always want to rise me up — and that’s an environment that we also really like to foster within the chapter.”
Read more about this student organization’s accomplishments on Inside Jindal.
Alumni News
JSOM MS Business Analytics Alumnus Receives Patent for Skills-Assessment AI Platform
A graduate of the Naveen Jindal School of Management recently received a patent for work on his company’s artificial intelligence platform.
Sameer Ranjan, MS’20, was awarded a patent for a program on MayaMaya.us, a platform that helps students and others learn which career areas fit their interests and personalities, providing specific advice and actions to help them select compatible educational and career paths. It also helps professionals track and improve their leadership and management skills.
“The idea came when the high school son of one of our company founders was having difficulty choosing a college major,” said Ranjan, chief technology officer and director of data analytics for Catenate, and a graduate of the Jindal School’s Master’s in Business Analytics (STEM) flex program. “Our research shows that 80% of students have had that same difficulty.”
Ranjan also said that Catenate’s research shows that changing your major can be expensive, potentially $10,000 or more depending on the amount of new courses a student must take.
Read more about this alum’s accomplishment on Inside Jindal.
UT Dallas Alumna Tops Off College Career with Competition Win
An alumna from The University of Texas at Dallas capped her college career by winning a gold medal at the 2022 SkillsUSA Championships. Sarah Romanko, BS’22, took first place in the Job Interview category.
Romanko graduated summa cum laude in May with a degree in business administration and a concentration in innovation and entrepreneurship from the Naveen Jindal School of Management, achieving a 4.0 grade-point average.
In August, Romanko started her career as a financial professional at 49 Financial, an Austin-based financial-planning agency. She spent the summer in the company’s bridge program working toward her industry certifications. She credits the education she received at the Jindal School for giving her the foundation she needed to pass the required certification exams.
“JSOM’s been really great with this preparation,” she said. “I think all the experience I had while I was a student just developing general business knowledge was what really helped me pass the exams.”
Read more about this alumna on Inside Jindal.
JSOM Alumna Named First Commissioned Cyber Operations Officer
A graduate of the Naveen Jindal School of Management was recently appointed as the first commissioned cyber operations officer in the U.S. Space Force.
Jessica Thompson, who graduated from the Jindal School with master’s degrees in both business administration and information technology and management, was commissioned as a first lieutenant in the newest U.S. military branch.
As a cyber operations officer, Thompson will command a Space Force crew and oversee cyberspace weapons systems. She also will assess intelligence information and maintain vigilance across all cyber channels — a task that is “a constant battle and 24/7 threat,” according to the Space Force.
“I am looking forward to continuing my military career while making a broader positive impact and being a part of an innovative new branch … to protect our nation’s systems in cyberspace,” Thompson said.
Read more about this alumna’s commission on Inside Jindal.
Accolades
JSOM Faculty Members Receive Recognition for Papers
A trio of Jindal School researchers had four papers named as winners or finalists at the 2022 INFORMS meeting:
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Dr. Umit Gurun, Stan Liebowitz Professor at the Jindal School, won the 2022 Management Science Best Paper Award for the paper “Patent Trolls: Evidence from Targeted Firms.” The research conducted by Gurun and co-authors Lauren Cohen and Scott Duke Kominers (both from Harvard University) revealed that lawsuits brought by nonpracticing entities (NPEs) — companies that hold patents but do not manufacture products or supply services based on those patents — are on the increase.
Gurun stated that NPEs appear to behave as opportunistic entities. They target firms that have reduced ability to defend themselves, repeat assertions of lower-quality patents, and increase assertion activity nearing patent expiration.
“We find that NPE litigation has a real negative impact on innovation at targeted firms,” he said. “Firms substantially reduce their innovative activity after settling with NPEs or losing to them in court. Having said this, we do not observe any value pass-through to end innovators, nor of a positive impact of NPEs on innovation in the industries in which they are most prevalent.”
Dr. Guihua Wang, Sydney Smith Hicks Faculty Fellow and assistant professor in operations management, was named as a finalist for two papers he co-authored.
- His paper “An Instrumental Variable Forest Approach for Detecting Heterogeneous Treatment Effects in Observational Studies” was selected as a finalist for the Pierskalla Best Paper Award, which recognizes research excellence in the field of health care management science.
- A second paper of Wang’s — “Does Transportation Mean Transplantation? Impact of New Airline Routes on Sharing of Cadaveric Kidneys” — was named a finalist for the Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (M&SOM) Service Management SIG (Special Interest Group) Best Paper Award.
- Dr. Anyan Qi, an associate professor in operations management, was a finalist in the Public Sector Operations Research Best Paper competition for “Combating excessive overtime in global supply chains.”
Graduate Dean’s Council Raises Money To Buy STEM Books for RISD Academy
The Graduate Dean’s Council at the Naveen Jindal School of Management raised more than $1,500 last fall to buy STEM books for RISD Academy, a public elementary school in Dallas that is part of Richardson Independent School District. The council funded three projects: Investigating Science with STEM Picture Books; Understanding How’d They Do That? With STEM Pictures Books; and Exploring Making and Coding with STEM Books.
“The council thought that a STEM book project reflected the Jindal School’s emphasis on offering STEM programs,” said Dr. Monica Powell, senior associate dean and graduate dean at the Jindal School. “The fundraising efforts helped underserved students in a big way as most can’t afford books of their own.”
