I realize that it has been a year since I wrote anything on my blog. Perhaps, that’s an indication of how busy/stressful the last year has been for me. I will plan on writing more often this year.
As I did last year, I will break my review into three parts:
- What went well in 2024?
- What didn’t go well in 2024?
- What did I learn, and how can 2025 be better?
What went well in 2024
By and large, I enjoyed 2024 (despite the shocks and stress) – ticking many of my work and personal targets.
Work
Research: I had slight success in getting a few positive signals on some of my papers. I received two requests for revisions (at two premier journals of my field, MSOM and MS). While a third paper was rejected, my coauthors and I decided to implement all the recommended changes, and resubmit this work back to a premier journal. These three papers have kept me busy this year. I enjoyed working on all these papers.
The paper on non-profit organizations was an interesting paper, both in the context its rooted in, and in the results we demonstrate. We show why scarcity of resources in severely resource constrained environments – like NPO’s in developing countries – may be a blessing! A new version of this paper will be out soon.1
The paper on competitive pricing under manipulability was interesting because it gave me an opportunity to understand choice models — a class of workhorse models used to model consumer choice — better. Besides, the paper is rooted in the context of manipulation due to the recent emergence of Gen AI, and presents interesting results on anti-competitive outcomes due to manipulation. Much has been said about the ongoing fake reviews problem in e-commerce. However, I do not see this problem ending anytime soon, so we may have to better understand the outcomes in its presence.
A third paper on competitive AI-based pricing (not publicly available) was quite enjoyable to work on (details intentionally omitted).
I was awarded WP Carey’s Early Career Research Award (along with my colleague Heng). This has been a big boost to my confidence that my research agenda and work is appreciated within my department and the school.
Teaching: I was recognized in the Poets and Quants’ Favorite MBA Professors — I am so grateful to my student Bailey for the nomination. I was also nominated within WP Carey for a teaching award called “Business is Personal” Award.
Personal
Family and Travel: I was able to travel thrice to visit my parents this year and spend about 2-3 weeks each time – something I’ll forever be grateful for.
Health and Fitness: I ran a ton with the Phoenix Run Club, and a little bit with Sole Sports Group Run. Overall, I am pleased to see my body reacting well to higher mileages (~25 miles/week) this winter. I have enjoyed running, and I hope to continue with these runs in 2025 as well.
- My favorite race this year has been the Phoenix Hot Chocolate 15k – where I got a time of 1:26 (~9:20 min/mile).
What Didn’t Go Well in 2024?
Work
Research: Zero published work this year. Whenever I have a year with no publications, it worries me. A frequent piece of advice I get from my senior colleagues is to “smoothen” my output to avoid such long inter-publication delays. This is something I have to actively work on.
Teaching: Teaching has been challenging this year due to multiple reasons.
- My advanced elective on demand planning had an explosion in enrollment (usually a class of 25, but had close to 50 this year), leading to a lack of interpersonal engagement, and often having to cycle through the motions. Personally, I do not enjoy teaching large classes. This “assembly-line”-ization of higher education is something I am not a fan of.
- I had to travel to ASU’s West Campus (close to the new TSMC factory), with a commute of about 2 hours every session. The West campus strategic location to the rising tech/semiconductor hub in the Phoenix metro is an exciting prospect. However, the commute took a significant toll on me during Fall.
- Changes to the FT-MBA program meant I had fewer lecture sessions, and it was a challenge covering the material with fewer sessions.
Personal
Losing my PhD Advisor: Earlier this year, Dr. Milind Dawande (my PhD advisor) had passed away. This has been a big shock to me. Half of my “weekly conversational time” used to be with Milind. Not having him around has left a huge void.
Health and Fitness: The early part of 2024 has been injury-filled, with getting an IT Band injury in February and in June. These injuries have kept me out of running for several months. Traveling to India also meant I had to take breaks in my running schedule, and I may have to miss the Rock ’n Roll (AZ) Half Marathon this year – something I am super bummed about. Also, getting diagnosed with influenza twice within a span of 2 months has been painful.
How Can 2025 Be Better?
Work
Research: I am optimistic about the ongoing projects reaching fruition soon. My main targets for this year is to take each of my ongoing research papers to completion in the best way possible. I also need to resist the desires to start new projects while a significant amount of work remains on the ongoing projects. This tradeoff of balancing excitement in starting new work vs. the boredom in closing all holes in ongoing work is a battle I’ll continue to have.
Teaching: Mentally, I plan to overhaul my elective on demand planning to streamline the material across offerings of this course in other programs. Something to work on in the summer.
Personal
Health and Fitness: I am actively strength training in a gym, along with Strength 50 classes at Orangetheory, in addition to better planning my mileage.
Family and Travel: I will have to renew my work visa this year. I am worried if I may not have an opportunity to travel this year. Fingers crossed.
The results in this paper might remind a reader of some of the findings in a fabulous book called Scarcity: The True Cost of Not Having Enough.↩︎