Updated: Former UC Davis Dean Rao Unnava And Wife Missing In Himalayan Floods

H. Rao Unnava, the marketing scholar who spent a decade transforming UC Davis’ Graduate School of Management and twice earned recognition from Poets&Quants, is among the dozens of Americans unaccounted for after catastrophic flash floods tore through the Nepal-China border region last week.

Unnava, 66, and his wife, Vasundhara “Vasu” Unnava, who lectures in marketing at UC Davis, had set out on what their daughter called a “trip of a lifetime” — a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash in Tibet followed by two months with family in India to mark his June retirement. Their daughter, Vaasavi Unnava, told the Associated Press that the couple planned to cross from Nepal into Tibet the same day the floods hit.

The disaster, triggered by a glacial lake outburst on August 26, has killed hundreds and left nearly 2,000 people missing across Nepal and China’s Tibet region, including scores of foreign trekkers. The U.S. State Department has said dozens of Americans are unaccounted for.

UPDATE: TOUR OPERATOR SAYS ALL 47 IN THE UNNAVAS’ GROUP UNACCOUNTED FOR, HOTEL SITE ‘ALL FLAT’

The Unnavas were traveling with Himalayan Glacier Adventure and Travel, whose chief executive, Sagar Pandey, tells the UK’s Channel 4 News that all 40 clients in the group – a multinational mix of American, Australian, Canadian, Singaporean and British nationals headed for Mount Kailash – and seven crew members remain unaccounted for, though no bodies have yet been recovered.

Pandey says he last heard from the group around 8 a.m. local time on August 26 and learned of the flooding roughly 45 minutes later. He sent a helicopter carrying the group’s passports and visas in hopes of reaching them, but the aircraft could not land and turned back. Repeated attempts to reach his crew, the tourists, local hotel owners and other residents in the area went unanswered.

By 3 p.m. the following day, when Pandey reached the site himself by helicopter, he says the hotel where the Unnavas and the rest of the group had been staying was gone entirely. “It’s all flat,” he says, adding that the property sat nearly 100 feet above the road – a height he believes left guests no time to escape once the water hit. Not everyone nearby was as unlucky: Pandey says roughly 100 people in a neighboring town were able to reach higher ground and survived.

Nepali police, military and armed forces are now conducting search-and-rescue operations in the area, though Pandey says local security resources have been overwhelmed, with additional government teams dispatched from Kathmandu. He adds that Chinese officials have warned of rising water levels in the glacial lake responsible for the flood, with the possibility of another breach.

“We are telling them to be optimistic,” Pandey says of the missing tourists’ families, stressing that no bodies have yet been found.

A DEAN OF THE YEAR AND A LIFETIME HONOREE

Unnava’s disappearance strikes close to home for anyone who has followed graduate management education over the past decade. P&Q named him our 2024 Dean of the Year, crediting his “thoughtful, people-first approach” to a deanship that pulled the school out of budget deficits and into the ranks of the UC system’s most innovative business schools. This past November, P&Q went further, giving Unnava our inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award for Leadership as he prepared to step down.

Over 10 years, Unnava built the first online MBA and part-time Master of Management programs in the UC system, launched credit-bearing stackable credentials, opened MBA content to alumni for free, and – against long odds – shepherded a new undergraduate business major through the university’s approval process. That major drew 8,800 applications for just 175 seats in its first cycle, more than 50 applicants per seat – a selectivity rate P&Q noted outshone both Harvard and Yale.

He had announced in July 2025 that he would step down as dean on June 30, 2026, planning a sabbatical before returning to the GSM faculty in 2027 to teach marketing and advertising.

Writing on LinkedIn, Wisconsin School of Business Dean Vallabh Sambamurthy calls Unnava his “close friend and intellectual journey partner for more than 40 years,” tracing their friendship to a shared “love affair with marketing” sparked during their time at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. “He has been an amazing business dean at University of California Davis where he led for ten years with amazing grace, insight and vision. He planned on returning to faculty where there was another path open for him to create yet another blazing impact. Yet, we are all hoping despite sinking hearts that he and Vasu are going to survive the calamity that happened in the blink of an eyelid at the Nepalese-Tibetan border.

“As a deeply spiritual person, this trip was the beginning of his sabbatical. … A global community is working every angle without losing hope and praying for the miracle their faith and goodness deserves.”

A ‘DISCIPLINED & DUTY-BOUND’ FIGURE

Vaasavi Unnava, a 31-year-old Ph.D. student, told the AP that when she first learned of the flooding she assumed her parents had already crossed safely into Tibet with their tour group. She wrote to him via WhatsApp to check in, but the message was never delivered.

She describes her father as “disciplined and duty-bound” but also quick with a joke, and her mother as spontaneous, playful and, in her words, the smartest woman she’s ever met. Of her parents, she says simply: “They have just changed so many people’s lives for the better.”

Vaasavi is working on her Ph.D. in Economics at The Ohio State University, where both her parents taught. Rao Unnava spent 32 years at the Fisher College of Business, where he held a string of leadership posts including the W. Arthur Cullman Professor of Marketing, senior associate dean, associate dean of undergraduate programs, associate dean of executive education, and chair of the school’s Ph.D. programs. Vasu Unnava earned both her MBA and Ph.D. at Fisher as well, and was a well-regarded marketing instructor there. The couple left Ohio State for UC Davis in 2016.

In a note to the Fisher community in the wake of the Nepal floods, interim Dean Aravind Chandrasekaran calls Unnava “a mentor, colleague and friend to many of us,” crediting him with shaping the careers of faculty and students throughout his career, including at UC Davis and in Chandrasekaran’s own path. The AP has published the entire statement:

“Rao has been a mentor, colleague and friend to many of us,” Chandrasekaran writes. “He has had a profound impact on our community, including mentoring several of our faculty and students, and his influence extends to the many students and faculty he has mentored and developed throughout his career, including at UC Davis. … For me personally, Rao has been a wonderful mentor and an important influence in my own journey. I know that many of you have similarly benefited from his generosity, wisdom and commitment to developing others. This is an incredibly difficult and uncertain time for their family, friends, colleagues and the many people whose lives Rao and Vasu have touched. Please keep Rao, Vasu and their family in your thoughts and prayers during this very difficult time.”

UC Davis officials have not yet issued a statement. P&Q will update this story when there is more news. 

© Copyright 2026 Poets & Quants. All rights reserved. This article may not be republished, rewritten or otherwise distributed without written permission. To reprint or license this article or any content from Poets & Quants, please submit your request HERE.