Vishal Gaur

Biography

Vishal Gaur is the Anne and Elmer Lindseth Dean and professor of operations, technology, and information management at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business. Gaur earned his PhD from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, and a BTech in computer science and engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi.

As associate dean for MBA programs from 2014 to 2019, Gaur launched the Digital Technology Immersion, in which MBA candidates and students earning their MPS in data science or applied statistics, develop skills in coding, databases, and advanced analytics, and learn to leverage them to tackle challenges faced by leading companies.

Gaur also created and served as the program director for the master of science in business analytics program offered through eCornell, which provides working professionals a hands-on opportunity to learn about data analytics tools essential to analyzing and optimizing business decisions.

Gaur’s research is focused on supply chain management, e-Commerce, and retailing, with an emphasis on the modeling of large-scale data for performance analysis, forecasting, and decision-making. His research has been implemented in practice at many companies and has received numerous awards, including the 2006 Wickham Skinner Early Career Research Award, and most recently, as a finalist in the 2020 INFORMS Innovative Applications of Analytics Award for collaborative work with India’s leading online B2B marketplace, IndiaMART. His article “Building a Transparent Supply Chain” in the March-April 2020 issue of Harvard Business Review was selected for HBR’s The Year in Tech, 2022. He served as a department editor for the academic journal Management Science from 2014 to 2021 and as the founding department editor of the Retail Operations department for Production and Operations Management before that. Gaur became a Distinguished Fellow of the MSOM Society of INFORMS in 2024.

He is the 2022 recipient of the Class of 1992 Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching, the 2020 recipient of the Stephen Russell Distinguished Teaching Award, a three-time winner of the Johnson School’s Core Faculty Award, the Cornell-Tsinghua Dual Degree MBA Gravitas Award in 2021, the Johnson Cornell Tech Core Faculty Award by the graduating class of 2017, and honorable mention in the George B. Dantzig Dissertation Award Competition in 2001.

Well-known among students for the care and attention he gives to his teaching, he most recently taught an MBA elective course in Digital Business and Retail Operations and the Semester in Strategic Operations immersion course, where MBA students go on site visits and work on client projects in topics such as industry 4.0, traceability, and sales and operations planning.

Gaur is an affiliate of the Consortium for Operational Excellence in Retailing and the Supply Chain Thought Leaders Group, and a supervisory board member of Nagarro SE.

Education

PhD The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, 2001
MA The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, 2000
MBA Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, 1995
Btech Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, 1993

Research

• Cui, Yao; Gaur, Vishal; Liu, Jingchen. "Supply Chain Transparency and Blockchain Design"Management Science. 70.5 (2024): 3245-3263
• Akkaş, Arzum; Gaur, Vishal. "OM Forum - Reducing Food Waste: An Operations Management Research Agenda"Manufacturing and Service Operations Management. 24.3 (2022): 1261-1275
• Davis, Andrew M.; Gaur, Vishal; Kim, Dayoung. "Consumer Learning from Own Experience and Social Information: An Experimental Study"Management Science. 67.5 (2021): 2924-2943
• Gaur, Vishal; Gaiha, Abhinav. "Building a Transparent Supply Chain: Blockchain can enhance trust, efficiency, and speed"Harvard Business Review. 98.3 (2020): 94-103
• Terwiesch, Christian; Olivares, Marcelo; Staats, Bradley; Gaur, Vishal. "OM Forum - A Review of Empirical Operations Management over the Last Two Decades"Manufacturing and Service Operations Management. 22.4 (2020): 656-668
• Akkas, Arzum; Gaur, Vishal; Simchi-Levi, David. "Drivers of Product Expiration in Consumer Packaged Goods Retailing"Management Science. 65.5 (2019): 1949-2443
• Alan, Yasin; Gaur, Vishal. "Operational Investment and Capital Structure Under Asset-Based Lending"Manufacturing and Service Operations Management. 20.4 (2018): 601-800
• Fisher, Marshall; Gaur, Vishal; Kleinberger, Herb. "Curing the Addiction to Growth: Lessons from the Retail Industry"Harvard Business Review. 95.1 (2017): 66 - 74
• Osadchiy, Nikolay; Gaur, Vishal; Seshadri, Sridhar. "Systematic Risk in Supply Chain Networks"Management Science. 62.6 (2016): 1755 - 1777
• Kesavan, S.; Kushwaha, V.; Gaur, Vishal. "Do High and Low Inventory Turnover Retailers Respond Differently to Demand Shocks?"Manufacturing and Service Operations Management. 18.2 (2016): 198-215

Awards

• 2024 MSOM Distinguished Fellows Award (2024) MSOM Society of INFORMS
• Class of 1992 Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching (2022) Second-Year MBA Students
• Stephen Russell '60, MBA '61 Distinguished Teaching Award (2020) Cornell SC Johnson College of Business
• Core Faculty Award (2017) Johnson Cornell Tech Class of 2017
• Wickham Skinner Early Career Research Accomplishments Award (2006) POMS