Surya D. Pathak

Surya Pathak is a Professor of Operations Management in the UWB School of Business. He received his PhD in interdisciplinary management of technology from Vanderbilt University in 2005. Prior to joining University of Washington, Bothell he has served as a research and technical lead at the Advanced Computing Center for Research and Education developing next generation network based data storage technologies, and as a Senior Research Associate in the Engineering Management Program and Systems and Decision Making group at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee.

He is currently conducting research in different areas related to supply chain management. His first and foremost interest is in investigating supply “networks” rather than “chains”, using complex adaptive systems and network theory. Particularly he is interested in, a) understanding the implications of considering a network based model on supply management decisions, taken under risk and uncertainty and, b) developing policy design frameworks that would aid policy makers and managers in making informed decisions. Dr. Pathak is deeply involved in using the network based view to explain sustainability related issues of supply networks. He recently was part of a multi-university research team that was awarded a National Science Foundation grant to study the link between technical networks, supply networks and environmental performance (one of the dimensions of sustainability).

While Supply chain management is his primary focal area of research, Dr Pathak is very interested in using the Complexity theory and Network theory lens to understand diffusion of lean manufacturing practices in a supply chain, project management in large organizations, and understanding the interface between marketing, finance and operations. His methodological orientations include agent-based simulations and cellular automaton models on grid computing infrastructure along with mathematical modeling, robust and reliability-based design optimization, archival data analysis, and game theoretic modeling techniques. Recently Dr. Pathak has also used qualitative research methods and secondary data based empirical techniques to enhance the richness of his research investigations.

He is a founding member of the Center for Supply Network Science at Arizona State University, at Tempe, Arizona. Dr. Pathak’s work has been published in the Decision Support Systems, Journal of Supply Chain Management, Decision Sciences and IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management. He frequently reviews research papers for the Journal of Operations Management, Decision Sciences, Journal of Supply Chain Management as well as the IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management.

EDUCATION

• 2005 Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Program in Management of Technology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
• 2001 M.S. in Electrical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
• 1999 B.E. in Industrial Electronics Engineering, Pune University, Pune, India

RESEARCH INTERESTS

• Supply networks
• Complex adaptive systems and chaos theory
• Marketing-Manufacturing interface
• Finance-Operations interface
• Policy design for large scale networks
• Sustainable Operations

AWARDS AND HONORS

• 2017 Nominated for University-wide Distinguished Teaching Award for Innovation with Technology.
• 2016-Present Inducted as Research Collaborator at the Digital Innovations Lab, Indian Institute of Management, Bengaluru, India.
• Invited to join Editorial Review Board of Journal of Operations Management.
• 2016 MBA faculty of the year, University of Washington Bothell, (TMBA)
• 2015 MBA faculty of the year, University of Washington Bothell, (LMBA)
• 2015 MBA faculty of the year, University of Washington Bothell, (TMBA)
• 2015 Nominated for University-wide Distinguished Teaching Award, (Finalist)
• 2014 Nominated for University-wide Distinguished Research Award, (Finalist)
• 2014 Nominated for University-wide Distinguished Teaching Award, (Finalist)
• 2014 MBA faculty of the year, University of Washington Bothell, (LMBA)
• 2014 MBA faculty of the year, University of Washington Bothell, (TMBA)
• 2013 MBA faculty of the year, University of Washington Bothell, (LMBA)
• 2012 MBA faculty of the year, University of Washington Bothell, (LMBA)
• 2009 MBA faculty of the year, University of Washington Bothell, (TMBA)
• 2007 Member of Center for Supply Network, Arizona State University, (invitation only)
• 2004 Society of Operations Management, 8th annual conference, best paper award, Mumbai, India
• 1999 University award for best undergraduate academic performance in industrial electronics, Pune, India