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Ramesh Sharda steps down as Oklahoma State business dean
He will return to the faculty in July 2025.
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Malvika Choudhary - Tue, 24, Jun 2025
- 13:59 EDT
- 20
Ramesh Sharda / Oklahoma State University
Indian American academic, Ramesh Sharda, is stepping down from his role as vice dean of Oklahoma State University’s Spears School of Business after more than a decade of service.
Widely recognized for his role in transforming graduate education and research at the Spears School of Business, Sharda will return to the faculty in July 2025.
Also Read: Tarun Khanna steps down as head of Harvard’s South Asia Institute
As vice dean for graduate programs and research, Sharda led the revitalization of OSU’s MBA program, established an engaged alumni advisory board, and played a key role in raising the online MBA to No. 11 in the U.S. News & World Report rankings. He also oversaw the launch of several new academic initiatives, including the Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) program introduced in 2023.
“I have loved being an academic entrepreneur,” said Sharda, reflecting on his journey.
“Ramesh has led by example as a scholar-teacher and has demonstrated his servant leadership in helping others over his career,” said Jim Payne, dean of the Spears School of Business. “I sincerely appreciate his dedication to the Spears School of Business over the past four decades.”
He first joined OSU as an assistant professor in 1980 and began delivering MBA lectures to remote learners in 1981—long before online education became mainstream. Graduate students in Bartlesville, Ponca City, and Tulsa watched his classes on television and interacted via telephone, enabling real-time engagement from distant locations.
In addition to his administrative leadership, Sharda is a regents professor and the Watson/ConocoPhillips chair in management science and information systems. He has co-authored two widely used textbooks—Analytics, Data Science, and Artificial Intelligence: Systems for Decision Support (Pearson, 11th edition) and Business Intelligence, Analytics, and Data Science: A Managerial Perspective (Pearson, 4th edition).
His research—focused on analytics, AI, and data science applications in business, healthcare, and natural resource management—has been published in leading journals including Management Science, Operations Research, Information Systems Research, and Decision Support Systems.
Sharda served as executive director of the Teradata University Network through 2020 and has held editorial positions with journals such as Decision Support Systems, Decision Sciences, ACM Database, and Information Systems Frontiers. He is a Fellow of INFORMS and the Association for Information Systems (AIS).
His accolades include the 2020 OSU Eminent Faculty Award, the Fulbright Distinguished Chair Award at Aalto University in Finland (2022–2023), and induction into the Oklahoma Higher Education Hall of Fame in 2016.
Sharda's academic journey began in India, where he earned a Bachelor of Engineering (Honors) in Agricultural Engineering from the University of Udaipur, Rajasthan. He went on to earn a master’s degree from Ohio State University, followed by a master of business administration and a doctorate in management science and information systems from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
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