An MS in Supply Chain Management student at the Naveen Jindal School of Management, won first prize in the 2023 American National Standards Institute (ANSI) student paper competition. Winning for her entry “Waste Disposition Management: An Enabler to Achieve the United Nations’ SDG #3 Within the Pharmaceutical Industry,” the topic was a real passion for Jayashree Balakumar.
“Pharmaceutical waste is a serious problem in the United States and it requires solutions,” Balakumar said. “The paper outlines many forms of action, including educating the public from an early age on how to dispose of pharmaceuticals properly. We may need to get to students as early as elementary school. This way it becomes a habit.”
Other suggestions in the paper included a water filtration system for sinks to take drugs out of the water, she said.
“It’s incredible that these conversations don’t happen more in the 21st century,” said Balakumar, who won $2,000 for finishing in first and is slated to graduate in May 2024. “It felt good that the problem is being taken seriously as thankfully it’s an issue that we can do something about. This is our planet and it’s our responsibility to look out for its future.”
Dr. Ramesh Subramoniam, a clinical associate professor in the Operations Management Area at the Jindal School believes enthusiasm for the topic was a critical part of Balakumar’s success for the paper, which was selected for the prize by ANSI’s Committee on Education.
“Jaya has strong research skills but you also can see how much she cares about changing the world for the better,” he said. “She has a strong interest in healthcare and it’s such an important issue for our world.”
Balakumar is the second Jindal School student so honored by the ANSI competition. Praneetha Pratapa, ‘21 took home first prize in 2020 as an undergraduate. A double major in Information Systems and Supply Chain Management, she was recruited at Google as a cloud technical resident and is now a cloud customer engineer.
Subramoniam said research is being stepped up even further at the Jindal School with the Jindal Undergraduate Research Scholar Program having launched this fall. He is the program’s director.
“We have invited and currently selecting students to join the program,” he said. “Undergraduate students with a strong passion for research and strong academic credentials are encouraged to apply at the earliest. The expectation in industry, with critical changes in the economy, is that employees will have the skills to do important research and bring positive change to their company. This program engages them in identifying what kind of research they want to focus on and identifies particular faculty to help them. They take a class on research to improve their methodology and ultimately focus on getting a strong internship and being a part of publishing a paper as something to take forward in their career. They will come out of school that much more prepared. Students like Jaya Balakumar and Praneetha Pratapa show the advantage of having superior research skills. This is only the beginning.”
