Accolades is an occasional News Center feature that highlights recent accomplishments of faculty and students at The University of Texas at Dallas. To submit items for consideration, contact your school’s communications manager.
Jindal School Researcher Wins Early Career Award
Dr. Atanu Lahiri, associate professor of information systems in the Naveen Jindal School of Management at The University of Texas at Dallas, recently received the Sandra A. Slaughter Early Career Award from the Information Systems Society of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences.
Given annually since 2015, the award honors Slaughter, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology known for seeking recognition for rising young leaders in information systems (IS). The award’s six recipients were recognized for their outstanding contributions to the IS discipline and their growing body of published research that is “likely to influence theory, research and practice.”
“This is a huge honor. I’m deeply grateful to my colleagues and students, all of whom have played a significant role in helping me reach this remarkable career milestone,” said Lahiri, a faculty member in the information systems area since 2014. “I’m also grateful to professors at my alma mater, the University of Rochester, who spent countless hours educating me and instilling in me the value of strategic thinking.”
Lahiri’s research interests lie in digital piracy, software security, telecom economics and health information technology. His work on piracy is widely recognized and has been featured in the London School of Economics Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review.
PhD Student, Teaching Assistant Earns Fellowship
Shahrin Upoma, a PhD candidate and teaching assistant in public and nonprofit management in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences at The University of Texas at Dallas, recently accepted a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Minnesota’s Herbert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs.
The President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, created by the University of California System, supports partner programs at several other universities through the Partnership for Faculty Diversity.
The program supports scholars whose research, teaching and service will contribute to diversity, inclusion and equal opportunity in higher education. The University of Minnesota recruits scholars with the potential to bring to their research and teaching the perspective that comes from their educational background or understanding of the experiences of groups historically underrepresented in higher education.
The fellowship opportunity is coupled with faculty mentoring, professional development and academic networking opportunities.
Upoma’s fellowship is in the area of leadership and management. Her research and teaching interests focus on diversity and inclusion in nonprofit and public organizations.
“Gender equity has been and still is an issue, regardless of the sector,” said Upoma, who is expected to graduate in May. “I am exploring how cognitive biases and gender stereotypes hinder the progress of female leaders in nonprofit organizations. For example, I am conducting an experiment with Dr. Elizabeth Searing [assistant professor of public and nonprofit management] on how gender affects donor behavior in nonprofit organizations.
“Getting a PhD here at UT Dallas has been one of the best decisions I have made. I have received awesome mentorship from all my faculty in public and nonprofit management, especially from my advisor and program head, Dr. Meghna Sabharwal, and my dissertation committee members — Dr. Doug Kiel, Dr. Paul Battaglio and Dr. James Harrington.”