Provost awards two Olin professors the Research Excellence Award

Sydney E. Scott and Dennis Zhang received the Provost’s Research Excellence Awards during a ceremony for the WashU research community at the Brown School on December 2.

The award, which Provost Beverly Wendland presented for the first time, celebrates the contributions of individual WashU research faculty to their respective disciplines, schools, and communities.

Wendland told the audience that the award’s eight recipients demonstrate the high caliber of research at WashU. External bodies have recognized all for the exemplary nature of their work.

Wendland said that Scott, Olin associate professor of marketing, researches the psychology of consumer decisions, focusing on moral judgment, naturalness, sustainability, and decision-making about health.

Zhang, Olin associate professor of supply chain, operations, and technology, researches data-driven business decision-making, Wendland noted. He uses machine learning, causal inference, and structural estimation with data to improve business decisions. Zhang also is an associate professor of marketing.

"This recognition means a great deal to me,” Zhang said later by email. “It highlights the importance WashU places on research and encourages me to deepen my contributions to our academic community."

Olin ties

A third award recipient has Olin ties. Hong Chen earned a Women’s Leadership Program certificate from Olin. She’s an associate professor of biomedical engineering at the McKelvey School of Engineering and an associate professor of neurosurgery at tWashU Medicine. 

She’s advancing the field of neurosonics by integrating breakthroughs in neuroscience and ultrasonics to deepen understanding of brain function.

The evening's program was titled "Here and Next Research Excellence Showcase" and was supported by the Office of the Provost and WashU's 10-year strategic vision, Here and Next, to mobilize research, education, and patient care. The goal is to establish WashU and St. Louis as a global solutions hub for the most profound social challenges.

Scott investigates when and why consumers prefer natural products and how they try to improve and maintain their health. Her research has been published in the Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Psychological Science, and Nature Human Behavior. Her work has garnered the attention of prominent media outlets, including The New York Times, The Guardian, and NPR.

"I'm very honored to receive this recognition," Scott said. "WashU is a wonderful and supportive place to do research, and I'm excited to continue working with the WashU community to study consumer decision making."  

Zhang published nearly two dozen scholarly articles during his first eight years at Olin. His work has led to two Olin Awards, recognizing scholarly research with timely, practical applications. In 2022, he was a co-winner of the POMS Early Career Research Accomplishments Award, one of the most prestigious honors in the operation management field. He is now the editor of machine learning and data science for Operations Research, one of the most prestigious operations management and research journals.

Here are the other recipients of the Research Excellence Award:

• Douglas Flowe, associate professor of history, Arts & Sciences;
• Husain Lateef, assistant professor, Brown School;
• Byron J. Powell, associate professor, associate dean for research, Brown School;
• David Queller, Spencer T. Olin Professor of Biology, Arts & Sciences;
• Carly N. Wayne, assistant professor of political science, Arts & Sciences.