Watson Graduate School students, faculty receive awards

Friday, April 16, 2021

Media Contact: Terry Tush | Director, Marketing and Communications | 405-744-2703 | terry.tush@okstate.edu

Spears School of Business graduate students and faculty were recognized with awards and honors in a special recognition ceremony today at the school on the Oklahoma State University campus.

Dr. Ramesh Sharda, vice dean for graduate programs and research at Spears Business, led the Watson Graduate School of Management ceremony that recognized a number of master’s and doctoral degree students and outstanding faculty.  

“This year has been particularly difficult for all students, perhaps even more so for graduate students,” Sharda said. “Many international graduate students are away from family and have had to endure the challenges of the pandemic. Despite such hardships, our graduate students have done well in their academic performance, won national and international competitions, and have been recognized as outstanding teaching associates. On behalf of all Spears Business graduate faculty and the college administration, it is heartwarming to be able to recognize our students’ accomplishments at this event.”

Graduate students recognized in the ceremony by department or program included:

Accounting

Yahya Abdullah – the Phillips Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship Award in Accounting and the American Accounting Association/Deloitte Foundation/J. Michael Cook Doctoral Consortium Award.

Robert Martin – the Outstanding Doctoral Student in Accounting

Katie Woodward and Delaney Nisbett - Outstanding Master’s Students in Accounting.

Haochuan (Kent) Hu - the American Accounting Association Annual Meeting-Financial Accounting Reporting Section of Excellence in Reviewing Award

Corey Collins - the Federation of Schools of Accountancy Outstanding Student Award.

Michael Albright - the Financial Executives International Outstanding Student Award

Shawn Alexander - the Conoco Phillips Outstanding ACE Scholar Award

Bethanie Cannon - the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board Outstanding Student Award

Trey Reeves - the Tax Executive International Outstanding Student Award

Kelli (Gauger) Day - recgonized as the fall 2020 Graduate Honorary Commencement Marshall

Stanlee Underwood - served as the 2020-21 Graduate College Ambassador for all of the Spears School of Business

Robert Martin - the Wilton T. Anderson Distinguished Graduate Fellowship Award and the Linda and Richard Farris Graduate Assistant Fellowship Award

Economics

Qinghe (Sunny) Su - the Phillips Doctoral Dissertation Scholarship and selected as the Outstanding Graduate Teaching Associate in Economics

Entrepreneurship

Duygu Phillips - the Phillips Doctoral Dissertation Scholarship

Finance

Midhun Madhu Snehalatha - the Phillips Doctoral Dissertation Scholarship

Yuri Hupka - the Outstanding Finance Doctoral Student

Heng (Emily) Wang - the Outstanding Finance Graduate Teaching Associate

Hospitality and Tourism Management

Choonghyoung (Alexis) Lee - the Phillips Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship Award in Hospitality and Tourism Management

Kai-Sean Lee - the Outstanding Doctoral Student in Hospitality and Tourism Management

Kyong Sik Sung - the Outstanding Hospitality and Tourism Management Graduate Teaching Associate

Alexis Marroquin - the Outstanding Master’s student in Hospitality and Tourism Management and also selected as the recipient of the Bill Ryan Distinguished Graduate Fellowship

Jiyoun West - the Pat Moreo Distinguished Graduate Fellowship

Recipients of the Center for Hospitality and Tourism Research Grant Award: Yan Cao, Yueying (Carrie) He, Bonhak Koo, Kai Shean (Sean) Lee, Can (John) Logun, Dazhi (Daisy) Qin, Kyong Sik Sung and Yi (Stella) Zhang.

Masters in Quantitative Finance

Jarred Long – the Outstanding Student from the Masters Quantitative Finance Program

Masters of Business Administration

Carly Bender – the Outstanding Student from the Masters of Business Administration program is

Management

Anna Zabinski - the Phillips Doctoral Dissertation Scholarship Award in Management

Sherry Fu - the Outstanding Doctoral Student for Management

Seth Smart - the Outstanding Management Graduate Teaching Associate

Management Science and Information Systems

Ankita Srivastava - the Phillips Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship Award for Management Science and Information Systems

Madhav Sharma - the Outstanding Management Science and Information Systems Doctoral Student

Gabriel Bahr - the Outstanding Management Science and Information Systems Graduate Teaching Associate

Sridhar Mokkapati - the Outstanding Masters Student from the Management Science and Information Systems

Marketing

Pramit Banerjee - the Phillips Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship Award and the Outstanding Graduate Teaching Associate in Marketing.

Colleen McClure - the recipient of the Marketing Alumni Merit Award

Business Analytics and Data Science

Recipients of the Outstanding Master’s Students in Business Analytics and Data Science are: Soumya Patra, Sugandhi Akula and Pankajdeer Bikumalla.

Andrew Dryanski – the Outstanding Online Master’s in Business Analytics and Data Science Student

The outstanding master’s students completing a certificate in SAS and OSU Marketing Analytics are: Xitong Hu, Aspen Schmidt and Anirud Vem.

Spears Business faculty were also recognized with awards:

Bryan Hammer – the Kenneth D. and Leitner Greiner Teaching Award

Ramesh Rao – the Jack Allen Family Education Teaching Excellence Award

Rick Wilson – the 2021 Outstanding Stillwater Faculty Award

A number of faculty were awarded the Heidebrecht MBA Faculty Fellowship Award: Todd Arnold, Richard Gajan, Michael Morris, Sandeep Nabar, David Thomison, Emma Quin Wang and Rick Wilson