Leading the Way

Krishnan Named Heinz College Dean

Carnegie Mellon University has named Ramayya Krishnan, the W. W. Cooper and Ruth F. Cooper Professor of Management Science and Information Systems, dean of its H. John Heinz III College, effective July 1. Krishnan has been interim dean of the college since August 2008.

Krishnan has been a member of the Heinz College faculty since 1988. He has served in a number of faculty leadership roles during his tenure at Carnegie Mellon and was the founding faculty member of the Masters of Information Systems Management Program.

“Ramayya Krishnan has held a deep commitment to Carnegie Mellon and the Heinz College for more than 20 years,” said Mark Kamlet, Carnegie Mellon provost and senior vice president. “Having spent most of his career in the Heinz School of Public Policy and Management, Krishnan has been a tremendous advocate for public policy initiatives such as the Washington, D.C., program and the Center for Economic Development (CED).

“He has also been a driving force in the growth of our graduate information technology programs and has fostered interdisciplinary collaboration across the Heinz College, Carnegie Mellon and other organizations through the creation of the iLab Research Center. His strong vision, boundless energy and collaborative nature position him to lead the new Heinz College to even greater heights,” Kamlet said.

“I am honored to become the first dean of the new Heinz College. We have created a unique structure that allows our schools of Public Policy and Management and Information Systems and Management to continue to prosper in their respective fields, while our shared faculty creates new opportunities to innovate on complex problems at the intersection of policy, technology and management. It exemplifies the interdisciplinary collaboration that has been a hallmark of Carnegie Mellon University, and truly distinguishes us from our peers,” Krishnan said.

Krishnan’s research investigates societal and business problems at the interface of technology, management and the policy aspects of Internet-enabled systems. His work has been published widely in the areas of e-commerce and social media, information security risk management and the design of policies that take into account the competing needs of promoting data access and privacy protection.

He has served in important editorial capacities in leading academic journals, such as department editor at Management Science and area editor with INFORMS Journal of Computing, and he has won several Best Paper awards. His work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Army Research Office and DARPA.

Krishnan’s teaching also has garnered recognition and accolades. He is the recipient of the General Motors (GM) Technical Education Program Outstanding Distance Learning Faculty Award, which honors a professor for demonstrating excellence in distance learning education. He is a winner of Martcia Wade Teaching Award in the Heinz School of Public Policy and Management and a two-time teaching award recipient in the Heinz College’s Information Technology (IT) Program.

Krishnan is an international research fellow of the International Center for Electronic Commerce in Korea, and a visiting scientist at the Institute for Information Systems at Humboldt University in Germany. He earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, a master’s degree in industrial engineering and operations research, and a Ph.D. in management science and information systems from the University of Texas at Austin.

In related news, Randal E. Bryant has been reappointed dean of the university's School of Computer Science, and Pradeep K. Khosla has been reappointed dean of the College of Engineering.