Associate professor of Information Management Kai Larsen; Jingjing Li (´13, PhD), who is now an assistant professor at the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia; and Ahmed Abbasi, associate dean and Murray Research chaired professor of Information Technology at the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce, recently received the 2019 INFORMS ISS Design Science Award.

The recognizes research efforts that use an experimental research approach, such as building and evaluating working IT systems or creating IT artifacts. The award “is principally focused on the quality, novelty and significance of the IT artifact created and validated,” and is widely seen as the top award for design scientists.

Larsen, Li and Abbasi are credited with developing a search engine for behavioral research, which in design experiments outperformed Google’s academic search engine by between 40% and 120%.

Their design is grounded on their paper “Theoryon: A Design Framework and System For Unlocking Behavioral Knowledge Through Ontology Learning.” The paper has been conditionally accepted by the top information systems journal; MIS Quarterly.

Congratulations to professors Larsen, Li and Abbasi.

Vic Marsh (OBIS), Phoenix Van Wagoner (OBIS), and Nick Light (MKTG) have been awarded the United Government of Graduate Students (UGGS) Graduate Teaching Excellence Award for their work as a GPTI for the academic year 2018/2019. The award includes a monetary prize of $400.

They were among a small group of award winners in “the most competitive process we've had in years” as described by UGGS. 

Congratulations Vic, Phoenix and Nick!

Vic Marsh (OBIS)

Phoenix Van Wagoner (OBIS)

Nick Light (MKTG)

Congratulations to 4th year OBIS PhD student, Phoenix Van Wagoner for being selected to receive the 2018-2019 Graduate Part-Time Instructor Teaching Excellence Award. Phoenix was nominated in fall 2018 by the DCPC and selected by the Graduate School to receive this award.

Congratulations to 4th year SEO PhD student, Jessica Jones for being selected to receive the 2019 Summer Graduate School Fellowship. Jessica was nominated by the DCPC and selected by the Graduate School to receive this award. The purpose of the Fellowship is to provide financial assistance to students as they pursue their dissertation research and writing. The Fellowship carries a $6,000 summer award.

Jessica joins previous Summer Graduate School Fellowship recipients; Tony Ding (2018) and Nikki Skinner (2017).

Congratulations to Marketing PhD student, Nicholas Light, as the spring 2019 Leeds PhD Program Teaching Award recipient for his outstanding performance in the classroom.

Despite the fact that broadly among scientists genetically modified (GM) foods are generally recognized as safe to consume—and actually have potential to benefit us—there are still strong opponents to their use. Leeds Assistant Professor of Marketing Philip M. Fernbach and Leeds PhD candidate Nicholas Light, in collaboration with additional researchers from Washington University in St. Louis; the University of Toronto; and the University of Pennsylvania, recently published a paper featured in  that found a correlation between opponents’ extreme views of GM foods and their perceived understanding of the subject.

Using a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults, marketing and psychology researchers asked their opinions about GM foods and how well they thought they understood genetically modified foods. Then, researchers tested how much respondents actually knew with a series of questions on general science and genetics. Results indicated that people’s perceived understanding of GM foods increased along with opposition and concern about their use, while objective knowledge of science and genetics decreased. In other words, extreme opponents think they know the most about this multifaceted topic but actually know the least.

Fernbach’s previous research on the “knowledge illusion” tells us that often people think they understand everything from common household objects to complex social policies better than they do, which can be problematic for scientific research. And substantive efforts by science communicators to educate the public on scientific findings and topics, including GM foods, have had limited success.

This new research by Fernbach and his colleagues highlights the quandary of educating those with the strongest views against GM foods of its benefits when they emphatically believe otherwise—and perceive they already have an in-depth knowledge of the subject. What’s more, these people may be likely to maintain this limited perspective because they are unlikely to choose to seek or open their minds to new information.

As Light told �鶹��Ѱ�����Boulder Today, “Our findings suggest that changing peoples’ minds first requires them to appreciate what they don’t know. Without this first step, educational interventions might not work very well to bring people in line with the scientific consensus.”

Although, this appreciation of our gaps in knowledge could be the first step to changing people’s views through education.

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Congratulations to Strategy, Entrepreneurship, and Operations PhD student, Harsha Tadikonda, as the summer 2018 Leeds PhD Program Teaching Award recipient for his outstanding performance in the classroom.

Congratulations to Organizational Behavior and Information Systems PhD student, Brittany Lambert, as the fall 2018 Leeds PhD Program Teaching Award recipient for her outstanding performance in the classroom.

Congratulations to SEO PhD student, Jessica Jones for receiving the 2017-2018 United Government of Graduate Students (UGGS) Teaching award! 

Read more /uggs/grants-awards/2017-2018-tagpti-excellence-awards

Rising second year Strategy, Entrepreneurship, and Operations (SEO) PhD student, Beth Embry’s paper titled “Green Beer: Why small to medium sized enterprises adopt sustainable practices" was chosen for the Best Accepted paper at the 2018 Academy of Management Meeting.
Read more at 

Accounting PhD student, Tony Ding's paper titled, “Understanding the Determinants of Board Busyness and the Relation Between Busyness and Performance” was chosen for the Best Doctoral Student Paper Award at the Western Region Meeting. Read more about Tony's