Gatton Professor Earns Prestigious Honor

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 16, 2011) − One of the foundations of major public research universities is that the research conducted by faculty members strengthens their classroom teaching and vice versa. These complementary functions, coupled with the third part of the mission of service or outreach, are exemplified very effectively by University of Kentucky Gatton Endowed Research Professor Radhika Santhanam.

Santhanam, a faculty member in the Decision Science and Information Systems (DSIS) area in the School of Management in UK's Gatton College of Business and Economics, and a faculty affiliate at UK's Center for Visualization & Virtual Environments, recently received the “Best Associate Editor Award” for 2010 from Informs, the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences. Santhanam served for two years as associate editor for Information Systems Research, a leading journal in her field. The publication is highly valued at business and economics schools, with important findings impacting the areas of management science, finance, operations research, and others.

Now in her 11th year on the Gatton College faculty, Santhanam teaches undergraduate courses in business computing, as well as conducting doctoral seminars in human- computer interaction, her major research interest.

"My research definitely informs my teaching," said Santhanam. "There is a very strong connection to the classroom."

One of the central themes of her research work is examining how people can best be trained to get the most out of their use of information technology.

Prior to joining UK in 2000, Santhanam was a faculty member at Florida International University and the University of Cincinnati.