Vandana Mangal

Dr. Mangal is the Founding Executive Director for the Easton Technology Management Center and Co-Director for the Business and Information Technologies (BIT) project at UCLA Anderson School of Management. She has taught Big Data as an Emerging Technologies and Markets course at UCLA Anderson and to executives in global universities. Dr Mangal spoke about Big Data and participated in a Q&A with a Silicon Beach Startup on 'Concept to Code' on the youtube channel for the City of Santa Monica.

As the Founding Executive Director, she has played a key role in launching and growing the Easton Center from 60 to over 600 students by building a cutting-edge curriculum that has made UCLA Anderson a school of choice for MBAs interested in tech careers and about 30% MBA students are now being placed in tech companies each year, for the past 5 years. She has worked closely with the Faculty Director, as the Center COO, to determine the strategy and direction of the Center, since its launch in 2009, and has helped raise nearly $15 million in Center funds. Working with the Faculty Director, she has built the Advisory Board for the Easton Center and for nearly a decade, she has brought in and organized executive programs in tech, entrepreneurship, leadership and operations.

As Co-Director of BIT, Dr Mangal has played a key role in launching and growing BIT from 3 to 21 partners in 17 countries. She has given talks at domestic and global conferences, published several papers and articles in journals and magazines, many in collaboration with global researchers. She has published four books (2007, 2009, 2012, 2016). This past year, she has brought Artificial Intelligence into the tech curriculum at UCLA Anderson. Dr Mangal discusses one application of AI, Drones, in her blog here. In past years, she has brought in emerging tech topics such as virtual reality, smart home, disruption in automotive space, IoT and mobile, into the UCLA Anderson tech curriculum.

Vandana has participated in panels and given talks, including at the UCLA Anderson Alumni Conference , UCLA Photonics Conference , Investor Festival in Silicon Beach, Digital Entertainment World Conference, California Clean Conference, the India Conference and the Women's Business Conference. She will be speaking at the SoTec Conference in October 2017. She has served as judge for case and venture competitions such as those hosted by TechWeek LA, Plug and Play, Google, Southern California Edison and Applied Management Research. She has been involved in conducting case studies. She has served as the guest editor of a special issue of the Journal of Engineering Management and Economics titled 'Technology, Operations and Strategy in Innovation and Entrepreneurship'. She is the recipient of several awards for research and programs including from the University of California's Industry-University Cooperative Research Program. She is a 5-time recipient of the UCLA Anderson School Local Award given for exemplary performance.

She is on the board of the UCLA IS Associates. She is on the Advisory Board of the UCLA Extension Technical Management Program, on the Executive Committee for the LA Media Lab , and is a cofounder and board member of the Women's Initiative Network (WIN). Through talks and mentoring, she guides students interested in tech careers, whether they are from technical or non-technical majors and whether they are interested in working in startups or large global corporations. Before joining UCLA, Dr Mangal has worked in big tech (Intel Corp) and consulting (AE Business Solutions). She has taught technology related classes as Adjunct/Lecturer at the University of Wisconsin - Madison's School of Business and at the University of Wisconsin - Platteville's Computer Science department. She received her PhD from Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University; her undergraduate degree is in Electrical Engineering from PEC University of Technology.

Education

• Ph.D. Technology Management and Information Systems, Heinz College Carnegie Mellon University
• Masters Technology Management and Information Systems, Heinz College Carnegie Mellon University
• B.S. Electrical Engineering, Punjab Engineering College