Booth Dean Leaving For Johns Hopkins

University of Chicago Booth School of Business

University of Chicago Booth School of Business

‘I’M HONORED TO JOIN AND SERVE JOHNS HOPKINS’

Johns Hopkins President Ronald J. Daniels called Kumar “a proven academic leader with uncompromising standards for excellence, great integrity and a deep-seated commitment to collaboration. He is a scholar and leader passionate about higher education, committed to values that align with the priorities of the Johns Hopkins ‘Ten by Twenty’ strategic vision, and well-suited to be a steward and champion of this extraordinary institution.”

Kumar, in a statement released by Johns Hopkins, made the boilerplate comments typical of such announcements. “I’m honored to join and serve the Johns Hopkins community,” Kumar said. “I have long admired the university, its outstanding faculty, and its excellent academic programs. I’m excited to work with President Daniels and the deans to implement the path forward laid out in the Ten by Twenty. I look forward to helping Johns Hopkins continue to attract the best faculty and students, while strengthening a welcoming, inclusive and scholarly environment at the university. Ensuring Johns Hopkins is the home of choice of a diverse and talented group of faculty members and students is important to me.”

Before joining Chicago Booth, Kumar was a faculty member for 14 years at Stanford, where he was Fred H. Merrill Professor of Operations, Information and Technology. As senior associate dean, he oversaw Stanford’s MBA program and led faculty groups in marketing and organizational behavior. He won recognition for distinguished teaching three times and was named a Finmeccanica Faculty Scholar.

A soft-spoken academic, Kumar came to the study and teaching of management from an academic background in engineering, including his Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering, earned in 1996 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

LAUNCHED INITIATIVES THAT BROUGHT THE B-SCHOOL CLOSER TO THE UNIVERSITY

“My own research interests have spanned engineering and business,” he said, explaining his longstanding interest in interdisciplinary work. “As dean at Chicago, I have helped spearhead several initiatives that brought the business school closer to other parts of the university, especially the undergraduate college.

“I feel that the professional schools and the rest of the university have a complementary and symbiotic relationship,” he said. “I am deeply attracted to the opportunity to support the faculty and students at Johns Hopkins as it moves closer to the ‘one university’ ideal.”

Kumar’s research has focused on optimizing manufacturing systems, service operations and communications networks and on applying optimization methods and control theory to various managerial problems. He has written or co-written 27 journal articles as well as chapters in three peer-reviewed books, including one, in a political economy text, on the behavior of voters and the political parties who seek their support.

Born in India, he graduated in 1990 from Mangalore University with a bachelor’s degree in engineering. Two years later, he earned a Master of Engineering in systems science and automation from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore.

DON’T MISS: CHICAGO’S NEW DEAN PURSUES GLOBALIZATION AND STRONGER ALUMNI NETWORK

Questions about this article? Email us or leave a comment below.