February 2025: Our proposal on Developing Generative AI Instructional Materials and Workshops for Business Analytics Education, with two other colleagues, has been awarded the Lam Larsen Initiative in Emerging Technologies Mini-Grant. 

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December 2024: Our abstract, titled "Transformative Power of Inland Ports to Revolutionize Global Sustainability and Contribute to the UN SDGs", has been accepted for oral presentation at the 2025 IISE Annual Conference & Expo in Atlanta, GA.

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October 2024: Our abstract, titled "A Comprehensive Framework for Sustainable Inland Port Establishment: Policy, Governance, and Planning", has been accepted for oral presentation at the 2025 METRANS International Urban Freight Conference in Los Angeles, CA. 

 

Fall 2024: I am on leave during the Fall semester of 2024. 

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May 2024: Delighted to announce that my research proposal of Inland Port Sustainability and Efficiency in the Age of Emerging Technologies has received the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs Grant of the San Francisco State University.

 

Feb - May 2024: Served as the committee member and submitted the 5-year review of the Center for Ethics and Sustainable Business, one of the oldest centers at San Francisco State University.

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April 2024: Volunteered to showcase Information Systems Department programs at the annual Explore SF State Event, with more than 5,000 prospective student attendees.

 

March 2023: Mentored a diverse team of students from the Lam Larson College of Business and College of Science & Engineering to develop and submit a novel business idea to the NASA MUREP Innovation Tech Transfer Idea Competition (MITTIC) Spring 24 competition.

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December 2023: Our Proposal for a Summer Program in France was approved by the University. The program provides a great opportunity for undergraduate business students (with any concentration) to travel to France as part of their course and learn about the business curriculum and culture in France.

 

October 2023: Received the Lam Larsen Emerging Technologies Initiative Grant for promoting research and creative activity among undergraduate students. 

 

August 2023: I am excited to announce that I am joining the Information Systems Department at San Francisco State University starting Fall 23 semester!

 

June 2023: I am delighted to share the exciting news that I have been granted early tenure and promoted to the rank of Associate Professor at California State University San Bernardino. 
Being awarded the "Above Expectations" rating in all three categories of "Teaching", "Research", and "Service" by both the Information and Decision Sciences Department Evaluation Committee and the Jack H. Brown College of Business Evaluation Committee among tenure-track faculty members is a very rare occurrence, and I am grateful and honored for this extraordinary recognition!

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April 2023: Presented our new research about Mobility with Drones in the High-Performance Computing Program Faculty Showcase on Campus.

 

March 2023: My abstract titled "Integrated Inland Port Solution for Sustainable Developments of Southern California" has been accepted for oral presentation at the Production and Operations Management Society (POMS) International Conference in Paris, France. 

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November 2022: Hosted the Director of Supply Chain at Kaiser, as a guest speaker in my SCM 6070 (Managing the Supply Chain) class. 

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October 2022: A new $2.5 million in partnership with Stater Brothers Market has been established for the development of the Fully Online Bachelor of Arts in Administration program with three concentrations (Supply Chain Management, Entrepreneurship, and Management). I am serving as the Program Coordinator for this program to facilitate the communications between JHBC and CEGE Deans, Department Chairs, faculty, and staff as well as ensure the high quality of the program.

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September 2022: Served as the core team member in developing the Blockchain Technology Certificate Program. The program will be available soon. Stay tuned! I have developed a website for the program. Check it out here.

 

August 2022: Umesh Makhloga, my master's student in Information Systems Technology completed his master's project successfully with the topic of "Improving India’s Traffic Management Using Intelligent Transportation Systems".

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July 2022: Our abstract titled "A Generalized Risk-averse Stochastic Optimization Framework to Promote Diversification and Fairness in Decision Making for Applications with Heavy-tailed Distribution of Losses” has been accepted for oral presentation in the 64th Annual Conference of the Operational Research Society, Coventry, England.

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June 2022: Our paper titled "Risk Parity: An Alternative Solution of Risk-averse Stochastic Optimization in the Presence of the Heavy-tailed Distribution of Losses" was published in the Journal of the Operational Research Society. 

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May 2022: Abner Garcia, my master's student in Information Systems Technology completed his master's project successfully with the topic of  "Study of Demographic Changes Caused by High Appreciation Rates". 

 

 

April 2022: Received the Outstanding Research, Scholarly, and Creative Contribution Award, recognizing my high-impact research contributions, by the Jack H. Brown College of Business and Public Administration, California State University San Bernardino.

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April 2022: My work has been featured on the university website. Read here: Assistant professor works to bridge academia and industry to train and mentor students.

 

February 2022: Our paper titled "Local Explanations of Global Rankings: Insights for Competitive Rankings" is accepted for publication in IEEE Access. This work proposes a hierarchical ranking explanation framework to capture local explanations for competitive rankings by defining a proper neighborhood construction approach. We explore various explanation techniques to identify the local contribution of ranking indicators based on the position of an instance in the ranking as well as the size of the neighborhood around the instance of interest.

 

January 2022: Our paper titled "Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a Framework for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)" is accepted for publication in the Sustainability journal. A novel framework has been proposed in this paper to subsume Corporate Social Responsibility categories under Sustainable Development Goals as a detailed roadmap to help companies save their environment, society, and economy, earn more profit and develop their organizations.

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December 2021: Our paper has been accepted for oral presentation at the 51 Annual Meeting of the Southeast Decision Sciences Institute (SEDSI) on February 16 -18, 2022 in Jacksonville, Florida. Title of presentation: "Functions and actors of inland ports: Insights for Southern California".

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December 2021: We have received the Dean's Teaching Innovation Grant for developing the Data & Business Analytics Master Program at the IDS Department. The program is expected to be launched in Fall 2022. 

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November 2021: Hosted Dr. Aravind Kailas, the Advanced Technology Policy Director at Volvo, as a guest speaker in my ADMN 6010 (Data-Driven Decision Making) class. 

 

October 2021: Attended INFORMS Annual Meeting in Anaheim, CA. 

 

October 2021: Collaboration with the ASCM (APICS) Inland Empire Chapter has resulted in establishing an endowed scholarship for students pursuing a career in supply chain, logistics, and transportation management. Each year two students will be selected to receive the scholarships. 

 

September 2021: Joined the JHBC Office of Equity as an advocate. See the biography of the advocates here.  My colleagues and I have received the Provost Grant,  an internal grant, to work on Eliminating the Equity Gap in Degree Completion for Underrepresented Minorities.

 

August 2021: My graduate student, Jolon Koppmann won the CSUSB Outstanding Graduate Thesis/Project Award in the Computer Science, Mathematics, Biological Sciences, and Physical Sciences category! Her research was titled Overcoming the Challenges of Big Data Analytics Adoption for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in the Manufacturing Industry. She graduated with a Master of Science in Information Systems and Technology in Spring 2021.  

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August 2021: Worked on a new Logistics, Supply Chain, and Transportation Management website to promote our programs. The website is now available at: www.csusb.edu/supply-chain-management 

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July 2021: Our ASCM club treasurer, Kassandra Rico-Alvarez, received the Coyote Image Award in recognition of her dedication to promoting diversity and inclusion in the campus community. 

 

June 2021: Attended the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) Virtual Conference: Centering Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

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June 2021: Jieping Mei, a master's student in Information Systems and Technology, joined my research group as a graduate assistant. 

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May 2021: Milli Patel, my former undergraduate student, joined Amazon as an Area Manager in Ontario, Canada, immediately after her graduation in May 2021.

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May 2021: My proposal for redesigning the Southern California cargo distribution has been selected as the awardee for the Jack H. Brown College of Business and Public Administration 2021-2022 Mini-Grant Awards.

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May 2021: Attended the IEGO Sustainable Logistics Core Team meeting to discuss reconnecting around industry engagement, and the $100,000 Workforce challenge idea.

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April 2021: Received the "Emerging Scholar Award" in recognition of excellence in research from the Jack H. Brown College of Business and Public Administration

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April 2021: Received the "Research and Creative Activity Mentor Award" in recognition of dedication to students’ success for careers in research, teaching, and preparing them to meet the highest professional and ethical standards as scholars, at the Office of Student Research

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April 2021: My undergraduate student, Milli Patel, received the Best Oral Presentation award at the 10th annual “Meeting of the Minds” Student Research Symposium for her community-based research Efficient Distribution of Imported Freight in Southern California.

 

April 2021: My students are presenting their research at the 10th annual “Meeting of the Minds” Student Research Symposium: Milli Patel, undergraduate student (Title: Efficient Distribution of Imported Freight in Southern California); Pual Wilson, Jim Reyes, and Priyanka Mago, graduate students, (Title: Utilizing Data Analytics to Identify Variables that Dramatically Influence the Quality of Life in San Bernardino County)

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April 2021: Invited to speak in the JHBC Real World Skills Bootcamp: Supply Chain Analytics: Data is Power in the Digital Era

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April 2021: Invited a guest speaker to present in my SCM 4750 class; Mr. Eduardo Vargas, Regional Director of Morrison Express Corp. Talk title: When and How You Should Try to Compete with Amazon

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April 2021: Milli Patel, my undergraduate student, has been selected as this year's Outstanding Undergraduate Student Researcher Awardee by the Office of Student Research at CSUSB!

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March 2021: Joined the Journal of Turkish Operations Management as ​an editorial member.

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February 2021: Received the "Dean's Teaching Innovation Grant" as a member of the Data Visualization Analytics Professional Certificate Program committee.

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February 2021: Our Paper was published in Transportation Research Record: Robust Hazardous Materials Closed-Loop Supply Chain Network Design with Emergency Response Teams Location

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February 2021: My undergraduate student, Milli Patel presented her research at the 35th Annual CSUSB Student Research Competition.

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