ISMS Doctoral Dissertation Proposal Competition

2025 Winner(s)

Winning material: Designing Self-Sustaining Markets: An Application to Content Platforms

The Sheth Foundation ISMS Doctoral Dissertation Award

2025 Winner(s)

Winning material: Self-Control and Overconsumption: Empirical Evidence from Cigarette Purchases

The Vithala R. and Saroj V. Rao ISMS Doctoral Dissertation Award 

Purpose of the Award

The ISMS Dissertation Award competition is open to qualified doctoral students worldwide. This dissertation proposal competition will be held annually and will recognize the best doctoral dissertation proposals on important marketing issues and subjects! The committee will select up to three award winners and up to four “Finalists.” The awards are named (a) the ISMS Doctoral Dissertation Award, (b) the Sheth Foundation ISMS Doctoral Dissertation Award, and (c) the Vithala R. and Saroj V. Rao ISMS Doctoral Dissertation Award. 

Click here for more information.


Past Awardees

2025
Winner(s)
Hung Ho, University of Chicago
Lei Huang, MIT
Finalist
Anya Shchetkina , University of Pennsylvania
Kohei Hayashida , University of California, San Diego
2024
Winner(s)
Mingyung Kim, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
Malika Korganbekova, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
Walter Zhang, University of Chicago
Finalist
Samuel Levy, Carnegie Mellon University
Ivan Li, Stanford Graduate School of Business
Henrique Laurino dos Santos, University of Pennsylvania
Fei Teng, Yale University
2023
Winner(s)
Mohsen Foroughifar, University of Toronto
George Z. Gui, Stanford Graduate School of Business
Lukas Jürgensmeier, Goethe University Frankfurt
Rupali Kaul, Stanford University
2022
Winner(s)
Ziwei Cong, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Runshan Fu, Carnegie Mellon University
Zheng Gong, University of Toronto
Wei Lu, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto
Alexey Sinyashin, UC Berkeley
2021
Winner(s)
Piyush Anand, Cornell
Olivia Natan, Chicago
2020
Winner(s)
Piyush Anand, Cornell
Olivia Natan, Chicago
2019
Winner(s)
Omid Rafieian , Cornell University
Tesary Lin , University of Chicago Booth School of Business
2018
Winner(s)
Hana Choi , Duke University
Minkyung Kim, Yale School of Management
Mengxia Zhang, University of Southern California
2017
Winner(s)
Ryan Dew, Columbia Business School
Minjung Kwon, NYU Stern
2016
Winner(s)
Navid Mojir, Yale School of Management
2015
Winner(s)
Beth Fossen, Emory University
Chris Naiqing Gu, University of Chicago
Seoungwoo Lee, University of Maryland
Courtney Paulson, University of Southern California
Anna Tuchman, Stanford University
2014
Winner(s)
Arun Gopalakrishnan, University of Pennsylvania
Ayelet Israeli, Northwestern University
Xiao Liu, Carnegie Mellon University
Shijie Lu, University of Southern California
Daniel Ringel, Goethe University Frankfurt
2013
Winner(s)
Ron Berman, University of California, Berkeley
Clarence Lee, Harvard University
Song Lin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2012
Winner(s)
Hye-jin Kim, Pennsylvania State University
Eric Schwartz, Wharton School
Shubhranshu Singh, University of California-Berkeley
2011
Winner(s)
Doug J. Chung, Yale University
Jason M.T. Roos, Duke University
Navdeep Sahni, University of Chicago
2010
Winner(s)
Masakazu Ishihara, University of Toronto
Baojun Jiang, Carnegie Mellon University
Pranav Jindal, University of Chicago