By Kara Sherrer
The Owen Graduate School of Management is pleased to announce that the Vanderbilt University Board of Trust has approved the promotion of Professor Yasin Alan to Associate Professor of Operations Management, with tenure, and the promotion of Professor Jessica Kennedy to Associate Professor of Management, with tenure, both effective fall semester 2020.
Yasin Alan
Professor Alan earned his PhD in Production and Operations Management from Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management in 2012. In July 2012, he began his career at Vanderbilt as an assistant professor in the Operations Management and Quantitative Methods (OMQM) area at Owen.
Professor Alan explores the operational and financial implications of retailers’ category and inventory management practices. He also conducts research in airline operations, where he studies the operational determinants of financial success.
“Professor Alan is an outstanding teacher,” said M. Eric Johnson, Ralph Owen Dean and Bruce D. Henderson Professor of Strategy. “Colleagues note that his research is innovative, and particularly managerially relevant, in that it develops and tests theoretical propositions; it then validates empirically that several operational processes are positively associated with firm value.”
Professor Alan has taught Supply Chain Management and Operations Management during his career at Vanderbilt. In 2018 he was named one of “The 40 Best Business Professors Under 40” by Poets & Quants. He serves on the Executive MBA Advisory Committee, and has served on the Student Achievement Committee. Professor Alan has served as OMQM Club Faculty Advisor.
Jessica Kennedy
Professor Kennedy earned her Ph.D. in Management of Organizations from the University of California, Berkeley in 2012. She completed a two-year post-doctoral fellowship at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and joined The Owen School as an assistant professor of management in 2014.
Professor Kennedy’s research sheds light on important workplace dynamics, advancing what is known about gender bias in the workplace. She has also studied unethical business practices and how they are addressed within organizations. She has found, among other things, that advancing to higher-ranking positions in the organizational hierarchy makes it more difficult for people to recognize unethical practices as such. In the context of negotiations, she has shown how negotiators’ beliefs impact whether they continue to trust a shady counterpart, to their own risk. Her research productivity was recognized at Owen in 2017 with the Research Productivity Award and she has twice received the Brownlee O. Currey Jr. Dean’s Faculty Fellowship in recognition of the quality and quantity of her research output. Her research on gender was recognized with the Chancellor’s Award for Research on Diversity and Inclusion in 2018.
Professor Kennedy teaches two courses at Owen, Leading Teams and Organizations and Negotiation. In 2018, Kennedy was named one of the Best 40 Under 40 Professors by Poets and Quants and in that same year won the Dean’s Teaching Award. At Vanderbilt she currently serves on the Provost’s Sexual Misconduct Prevention Committee and has twice served on a professional ethics panel for the Undergraduate Honor Council’s Academic Integrity Week.
“Professor Kennedy is an engaging and committed instructor, willing to go the extra mile to help them learn and move forward in their careers,” said Johnson. “Consistent with her research and her focus on ethics and equality, Professor Kennedy’s service has focused on building stronger community at Vanderbilt, Owen, and in the field of Organizational Behavior.”
