Smeal Faculty Honored for Excellence in Teaching

The Penn State Smeal College of Business has presented faculty members Saurabh Bansal and Brian Davis with Dillwyn P. Paiste, III Teaching Awards.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. (July 30, 2012) – The Penn State Smeal College of Business has presented two faculty members with Dillwyn P. Paiste, III Teaching Awards.

Saurabh Bansal, Assistant Professor of Supply Chain Management, and Brian Davis, Clinical Assistant Professor of Finance, were selected from a pool of eight nominees within the college.

“Smeal is fortunate to have many outstanding teachers,” said Charles H. Whiteman, the John and Becky Surma Dean of Smeal. “I think it’s important to recognize teaching excellence at the college, and I congratulate professors Bansal and Davis on their achievements in the classroom.”

Bansal joined the Smeal faculty in August 2010 after earning a Ph.D. from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. His research interests include operational decisions under uncertainty, assortment planning, and optimal bidding strategies in procurement auctions. Bansal holds two master's degrees from McCombs and a bachelor's degree in Industrial Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology.

Davis joined the Smeal faculty in August 2009 after serving as Assistant Professor at York College of Pennsylvania and a Visiting Professor at Ohio University. His research focuses on financial market regulation, oil markets, and the complexities of current financial market events. He holds a Ph.D. from the State University of New York’s Rockefeller School of Public Policy Administration, a master’s in Economics from George Mason University, and a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Colgate University.

The Paiste award recognizes outstanding teaching and instructional potential in full-time faculty members at Smeal, and provides supplementary funds to be used by the award recipient to further their contributions in teaching.

REPORTERS & EDITORS: For more information, please contact Victoria Fryer in the Smeal College of Business Media Relations Office at 814-863-3798 or mediarelations@smeal.psu.edu.

Penn State's Smeal College of Business offers highly ranked undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, Ph.D., and executive education opportunities to more than 5,500 students at all levels. Featuring academic departments of accounting, finance, management and organization, marketing, risk management, and supply chain and information systems, the college is also home to major research centers such as the Center for Supply Chain Research, the Institute for the Study of Business Markets, the Farrell Center for Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the Center for Global Business Studies, and the Center for the Management of Technological and Organizational Change.