Best 40-Under-40 Professor Sreekumar R. Bhaskaran

Sreekumar R. Bhaskaran

Associate Professor, Frank and Susan Dunlevy Faculty Fellowship

Age: 38

Institution: Cox School of Business, Southern Methodist University

Since: 2006

Before current institution: PhD. student at the University of Texas at Austin

Hometown: Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India

Marital status: Married

Children: 2 daughters (5 ½ and 2 ½)

Education:

Ph. D. in Supply Chain and Operations Management, Department of Information, Risk and Operations Management, University of Texas at Austin (2006)

Master of Business Administration, Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, India (2000)

Bachelor of Technology in Mechanical Engineering, IIT Madras, India (1998)

Courses currently teaching: 

Project Management, Operations Analytics, Operations Management

Fun fact:          

I love sports (playing as well as watching) but do not like exercise. Put me in a court, and I wouldn’t mind playing on for hours, but ask me to do some exercise, and I would not even last five minutes.

Professor you most admire:

Prof. Vish Krishnan (UC San Diego) and Prof. Steve Gilbert (UT Austin) who were my advisers. Their ability to balance research, teaching, and family and to manage each of them exceptionally well is incredible.

Most memorable moment as a professor:

Most moments in my academic career have been memorable, but the unforgettable one is the question I was asked on my first day of the first class I ever taught: “How old are you?”

“If I weren’t a B-school professor…”

I would still be selling chocolates. Prior to joining the doctoral program, I was working at Cadbury India. For someone like me with a sweet tooth, that was a dream job.

Prof. Sreekumar Bhaskaran may have a weak spot for chocolate and detest exercise, but he’s hardly a loaf. At only 38, the former Cadbury India sales manager is now a tenured professor at SMU’s Cox School of Business, where he teaches Operations Management and Project Management. His excellence in the classroom earned him the C. Jackson Endowed Faculty Innovation Award for 2008-2009.

This top prof is not only a skilled instructor but also possesses notable research chops. One year later, Bhaskaran received Cox’s 2010-2011 Research Excellence Award.  His work on new product development and innovation has appeared in Management Science, Marketing Science, and Production and Operations Management Journal.

Sreekumar Bhaskaran is among “The World’s 40 Best B-School Profs Under the Age of 40“