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Summer is here, and it arrives with good reason to celebrate. This past winter gave us more snow days than we could count, including a historic blizzard that became its own kind of shared memory across campus, and there is something especially sweet about coming out the other side into long days and warm weather.
The URI PhD community has been busy. Research has been advancing, milestones have been reached, and the kind of quiet, persistent work that defines doctoral life has been happening all around us. As the spring semester wraps up and summer opens before us, this issue is a chance to pause and reflect on everything this community has accomplished, celebrated, and built over the last few months. There is a lot worth recognizing.
Welcome to the Summer Issue of PhD Pulse.
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Mona Safizadeh
Marketing
Class of 2029
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Mona Safizadeh is a second-year Ph.D. student in Marketing.
Her research focuses on consumer behavior, with a particular interest in sustainable and luxury consumption, sensory marketing, and how marketing communications and emotions shape consumer decision-making.
Her work has been published in Psychology & Marketing and presented at ACR and AMA.
Mona holds a Master's in International Business and brings seven years of industry experience in marketing strategy and business development.
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Fatma Pakdil
Supply Chain Management
Class of 2026
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Fatma is a third-year Ph.D. student, specializing in O&SCM. Her research focuses on developing personalized hospital readmission estimation models, with particular emphasis on continuous-time Markov chains and real-time predictive frameworks based on online learning.
Fatma holds both an MBA and a Ph.D. in Management and Organization from Uludağ University in Türkiye.
Fatma notes that by enabling timely identification of changing patient risk profiles, such predictive models can help hospital managers implement proactive interventions, improve discharge planning and transitional care, and strengthen case management strategies.
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Ian Fan
Finance
Class of 2029
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Ian is a first-year Ph.D. student in Finance, specializing in Empirical Finance. His research focuses on asset pricing and investor behavior, with a particular interest in attention, sentiment, and the processing of information in financial markets.
He holds a Master’s degree from New York University and a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Connecticut, majoring in Economics.
Ian is broadly interested in understanding the forces that shape asset prices and the factors that affect the stock market.
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Where Are They Now?
Checking in with past PhD Students
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Yifei Li
Assistant Professor of Finance
University of NV, Reno
URI PhD: 2018
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Q. What, in your opinion, was the most pivotal moment (either a roadblock or an enabler) between your dissertation and today?
A. I would say the pivotal moment was making the mental transition to becoming an independent researcher. It wasn’t a single moment, but more of a period. Maybe around my third year in my current position.
During the PhD program, much of the work is done in collaboration with advisors. After graduation, however, you must learn how to develop research ideas, design projects, and carry papers forward independently. That transition can be challenging at first...
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Recent College of Business PhD News & Events
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Ali Raoufi and Derek Dubois Successfully Defended Their Dissertation Proposals
Both Ali and Derek are wrapping their third-year as PhD students. This marks an important milestone in their doctoral journey.
Congratulations to Ali and Derek on this accomplishment!
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Fatma Pakdil Defended Her Dissertation
Dr. Pakdil's dissertation, Essays on Predicting Hospital Readmissions: Personalized Risk Estimation Using Multi-State Models and Machine Learning, was defended in March. Her research evaluates approaches to improve hospital readmission forecasting through various models.
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SCM at the Daugherty Logistics Doctoral Symposium
Dr. Yalcin, Derek Dubois, and Fatma Pakdil proudly represented URI's SCM program at the 2026 Daugherty Logistics Doctoral Symposium hosted by the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
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Finance Research Spotlight
A recent paper by PhD student Maniraj Muthyala (with Dr. Choonsik Lee), “Are Boardroom Observers White Knights or Trojan Horses?”, was featured on the Columbia Law School Blue Sky Blog.
The study examines activist investors’ use of non-voting board observers and finds that markets respond negatively to these arrangements, suggesting they provide weaker oversight than full board representation.
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SCM published Op-ed
First year doctoral student Olakunle Kayode published an op-ed in Providence Business News titled "US should transition to trade rather than aid"
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Spotlight on SCM Research
Soode Vaezinejad (SCM PhD student) has coauthored a new research study with Mir Saman Pishvaee and Dara Schniederjans. The study has been published in International Journal of Production Research.
This study reviews 101 peer-reviewed journal articles on optimization models in smart supply chains. Congratulations to Soode and team!
Soode has also accepted a job offer at Utah Tech starting this fall. Congratulations, Soode, and best of luck!
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SCM Area Updates
- SCM Doctoral students Janos Kata, Danielle Cedeno, Olakunle Kayode, and Derek Dubois presented at the Northeast Decision Sciences Institute conference in Philadelphia in April.
- Congratulations to Soode Vaezinejad and Derek Dubois, who have received the COB Doctoral Research Award and COB Doctoral Student Service and Leadership Award, respectively.
- Fatma Pakdil, Ali Raoufi, Soode Vaezinejad, and Derek Dubois attended the POMS conference in Reno, NV in May 2026
- URI will host the prestigious Daugherty Logistics Doctoral Consortium in 2028, chaired by Dr. Yalcin, a great recognition for the program.
- The SCM Doctoral Program is having the annual picnic on Sunday, May 31st, 2026.
- Gawon Yun (SCM PhD, 2020) at Missouri State University and Hee Yoon Kwon (SCM PhD, 2020) at The Citadel have both been promoted to Associate Professor with tenure.
Marketing Area Updates
- Congratulations to Mona Safizadeh for receiving the Dholakia Research Award for PhD students!
- Nir Kshetri (PhD, 2003) has been named the Charles A. Hayes Distinguished Professor at the Bryan School of Business and Economics, UNC Greensboro.
- Jay Oliver (PhD 2007) is now the Associate Marketing Professor, Director of M.B.A. Programs, and Director of the Bachelor of Arts in Business Studies degree at the University of Rhode Island.
- Shawn Scott (PhD, 2021) has been named the School of Business and Technology Quigley Professor at Curry College.
- Mona Safizadeh presented her paper, with coauthor Atefeh Yazdanparast, titled "Purpose in Life and Consumption Behavior: A Phenomenological Approach" at the Association of Collegiate Marketing Educators (ACME) Annual Conference, March 18–21, Dallas, TX. Mona also served as a Track Chair at the ACME conference.
Finance Area Updates
- Milad Kasirian presented his working paper on professional investor sentiment at the 19th International Conference on Behavioral Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and more recently at the URI GSA Conference. His research examines how the emotions of active mutual fund managers shape market movements and predict future stock returns. Milad has also been selected to serve as a reviewer for the FMA Annual Meeting in Tampa, Florida, this October.
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PhD Student Publications
Dubois, D., M. H.Ashraf, and M. G.Yalcin. 2026. “From Headlines to Supply Lines: Paradoxes in the Digital News Media Supply Chain.” Transportation Journal65, no. 2: e70024. https://doi.org/10.1002/tjo3.70024.
Dubois, D., & Chen, Y. (2026). Video streaming wars: Content production strategies for streaming platforms. European Journal of Operational Research, 334(1), 336–349. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2026.04.030
Dubois DM, Triki A, Kouhizadeh M (2026;), "Mind the gap: generative AI as a knowledge translator to address the theory-practice gap in supply chain management". International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPDLM-08-2025-0423
Soode Vaezinejad, Christopher Michael Starkey, Dara Schniederjans, 2026. "Who Can? AI Can! Enhancing Firms’ Knowledge Management Capabilities Through an Ethical Implementation of Artificial Intelligence", AI-Driven Knowledge Management Processes, Volume 1: Strategies for the Modern Business Landscape, Meir Russ, Miltiadis D. Lytras
Vaezinejad, S., Pishvaee, M. S., & Schniederjans, D. (2026). A critical review of optimisation models in smart supply chains: insights and future directions. International Journal of Production Research, 1–34. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2026.2645688
Pakdil, F., Kouhizadeh, M., & Leonard, K. (2026). Cultural and organisational variables in blockchain technology acceptance. International Journal of Production Research, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2026.2632694
Muchiri, S., Pakdil, F., & Azadeh-Fard, N. (2026). An analysis of length of stay and readmissions of COPD patients in the U.S. between 2010 and 2020. International Journal of Healthcare Management, 19(1), 50–61. https://doi.org/10.1080/20479700.2024.2403875
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