Karthik Kannan among three Purdue faculty named as Jefferson Science Fellows

Thursday, March 9, 2017

Three Purdue faculty members have been selected as Jefferson Science Fellows. Peter Hirst (Horticulture), Karthik Kannan (Management) and Sonak Pastakia (Pharmacy) have been named to the 2017-18 class of Jefferson Science Fellows, an initiative of the Office of Science and Technology Adviser to the U.S. Secretary of State. 

The program is administered by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine with the goal of engaging the academic community in providing science and technology advice in the process of formulation of U.S. foreign policy.

The JSF program was established in 2003 to further build capacity for science, technology and engineering expertise within the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development. The JSF program is supported through a partnership between the U.S. academic community, professional scientific societies, the U.S. Department of State, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Karthik Kannan is a professor in Purdue's Krannert School of Management. He has served the academic director for MBA programs, academic co-director for the MS in Business Analytics and Information Management program and co-director of the Business Information and Analytics Center. 

Kannan studies how different aspects of information technology may be used to exploit human instincts and biases in order to nudge or manipulate behavior. He has applied related ideas in pricing using auctions of information goods, pricing of data networks and the economics of information security. His papers have been accepted in several leading conferences and journals in the information systems area. He is a member of AIS and INFORMS. He is also a CERIAS Fellow and Krannert's Faculty Fellow.

To date, the JSF program has named 141 Fellows from U.S. institutions of higher learning. Including this year, Purdue has had nine faculty named as Jefferson Fellows, more than any other institution. Previous Jefferson Fellows from Purdue were Melba Crawford, Alexander King (no longer at Purdue), Suresh Garimella, Jay Gore, Charles Santerre and Barrett S. Caldwell.