Ravi Bapna

Timeline

1. 1989–1999

   Doctorate at the University of Connecticut

   He earns a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Calcutta in 1989 and a computer engineering degree from the Manipal Institute of Technology in 1993. He completes a doctorate in information systems at the University of Connecticut in 1999, with a thesis on the economics of online auctions.

2. 1999–2004

   Assistant professor to Ackerman Scholar

   He starts as an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Dallas in 1999 and moves to Northeastern University in 2000. In 2001, he joins the University of Connecticut, where he becomes an associate professor and Ackerman Scholar in 2004.

3. 2006–2011

   Indian School of Business, then Minnesota

   From 2006 to 2008, he is an associate professor of information systems at the Indian School of Business. He then holds a tenured associate professorship at the University of Minnesota until 2010, followed by a Board of Overseers professorship. In 2011, he is Board of Overseers Professor of Information and Decision Sciences at the Carlson School of Management and Executive Director of the Srini Raju Centre for Information Technology and the Networked Economy at the Indian School of Business.

4. 2012–2016

   SOBACO and a peer influence study

   From 2012 to 2016, he is founding academic co-director, with Joe Konstan, of the University of Minnesota's Social Media and Business Analytics Collaborative (SOBACO). In 2015, he and Akhmed Umyarov publish a randomized field experiment in Management Science showing that peer influence from an adopting friend raises the odds of buying a paid service on a freemium social network by more than 60%.

5. 2015–2020

   Carlson Chair and Analytics Lab

   In 2015, he becomes the Curtis L. Carlson Chair in Business Analytics and Information Systems and Academic Director of the Carlson Analytics Lab, which links industry and academia on AI and machine learning applications. He becomes Associate Dean for Executive Education in 2017 and Academic Director of the Analytics for Good Institute in 2020. He also co-founds Carlson's Master of Science in Business Analytics & Artificial Intelligence (MSBAi) program.

6. 2018–2020

   Two INFORMS ISS honours

   The INFORMS Information Systems Society names him a Distinguished Academic Fellow in 2018 and gives him its Inaugural Practical Impacts Award in 2020.

7. 2024

   The book Thrive

   MIT Press publishes Thrive: Maximizing Well-Being in the Age of AI in October 2024, which he writes with Anindya Ghose. The book shows how AI is influencing health, relationships, education, work and home life, and offers a "House of AI" framework that covers traditional analytics, generative AI and ethical deployment.

8. Since September 2026

   Dean of Leavey School of Business

   In September 2026, he becomes dean of Santa Clara University's Leavey School of Business, its chief academic and executive officer, and the Mario L. Belotti Professor of Business. He comes from the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota.