Two OPIM Ph.D. Candidates, One Alumna Achieve Noteworthy Accomplishments

Two UConn OPIM Ph.D. students and a recent program alumna have achieved noteworthy accomplishments in recent weeks.

Alumna Lei (Michelle) Wang ’14 Ph.D., assistant professor at Penn State University, received the 2015 Nunamaker-Chen Dissertation Award at the Conference on Information Systems and Technology–INFORMS Conference 2015 for her research titled, “Three Essays on the Interface of Location-Based Services, Consumers’ Shopping Behavior and Firms’ Marketing Strategy.” The award recognizes and rewards outstanding dissertation research by scholars in the field of information systems.

A panel of judges composed of senior faculty members from top information systems academic departments review the submissions. Dissertations are evaluated based creativity and novelty, scope and magnitude of contribution to IS research, relevance to practice, technical quality, and richness of methodological approach. “She was an outstanding student and is an up-and-coming leader in the field,” said Ram Gopal, department head.

At the same conference, fourth-year OPIM Ph.D. student Brian Lee’s paper titled “Irrationality of Crowds: Information Accuracy and Consistency in Prediction Markets” was nominated for the Best Conference Paper as well as the Best Student Paper Award.

Meanwhile, fourth-year OPIM Ph.D. student Xu Han’s paper titled “Empirical Investigation on the Prevalence of Manipulation in Nursing Homes’ Rating System” was awarded the National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation Grant. Han worked on the paper with Niam Yaraghi at The Brookings Institution and Professor Ram Gopal, as part of his dissertation. “It’s a prestigious and highly selective grant program and this speaks well to the quality of Xu’s work,” Gopal said. The grant will provide summer support for Xu to continue his research.