Ramesh Bollapragada, Ph.D.

Faculty Site URL: https://faculty.sfsu.edu/~rameshb/

Biography: 

Ramesh Bollapragada was born in India. Having lived in Hyderabad, India for 21 years, he moved to the United States in the '90s.

Since August 2002, Professor Bollapragada has taught in the Decision Sciences Department of the Lam Family College of Business at San Francisco State University.

In a span of 9 years since joining the Lam Family College of Business, he was promoted from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor with tenure, and from Associate Professor to Full Professor.

Ramesh received the "Distinguished faculty award for Excellence in Professional Development for the academic year 2013-2014" awarded annually at the university level at San Francisco State. This recognition (Research Professor of the Year across over 1000 full-time faculty) is considered to be the equivalent of a "lifetime achievement award" for outstanding contributions to his profession. For details, please see the links: 

• Outstanding Faculty of the California State University, Ramesh Bollapragada, PhD
• Excellence in Professional Achievement and Growth Award
• Four Honored at SF State's Opening Faculty Meeting (watch the meeting on Youtube)
• Faculty Retreat 2015

Further, he received the Lam Larsen Distinguished Research Professor award at the Lam Family College of Business in 2021. Please see the details below link.

Lam Larsen Distinguished Research Professor, 2021-2023

From the academic year 2016-2017, Ramesh serves as the Director of Research at the Lam Family College of Business. In this role, he teams up with the Dean and Associate Dean in leading several new research initiatives at the College.

Over the past nineteen years, Ramesh taught courses for the Executive MBA program, the M.B.A. program, and undergraduate classes in the areas of operations management, supply chain management, business forecasting, managerial decision making using optimization models, and total quality systems, computer simulation and managerial statistics.

In the Summer of 2016 and Summer of 2014, he served as a Visiting Research Scholar at the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad, India. In Spring 2017, he was a Visiting Professor in the Engineering school, the University of California at Berkeley, and taught the Supply Chan Management class for graduate students from Civil, IEOR, and Chemical engineering. Further, in Fall 2011, he was a Visiting Professor at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, and taught the Supply Chain Management class taken by the EMBA and MBA students.

Prior to joining SF State, Ramesh was a Research Scientist at Bell Laboratories, and Lucent Technologies in Holmdel, NJ for six years, working in the areas of inventory and supply chain management, and telecommunications network planning.

He worked for six months in the Manufacturing Research Center at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY as a summer intern in 1994. He also has two years of experience in process automation and control in India.

Ramesh has a B.Tech. and M.S. in electrical and electronics engineering from India and an M.S. and Ph.D. in management of manufacturing and automation from the School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.

He received fellowship awards for his graduate study at Carnegie Mellon and National Merit Scholarship from High School to a master's degree in India.

Ramesh has published over 20 journal papers, with over a dozen in Tier A journals. He presented at over 20 international conferences (U.S. and Europe) and also served as an invited session chair at the INFORMS annual meetings. In addition, he was invited to give talks on his research at Stanford University, U.C. Berkeley, Google's research group at their Mountain view Headquarters, and the top management institutes in India (ISB-Hyderabad, IIM-Ahmedabad, and IIM-Bangalore).

His research is published in journals such as Management Science (2 papers), Interfaces (2 papers), INFORMS Journal of Computing (2 papers), IIE Transactions on Scheduling and Logistics (2 papers), Naval Research Logistics (1 paper), Decision Sciences (1 paper), European Journal of Operational Research (1 paper), Transportation Journal (1 paper), Operations Research Letters (1 paper), International Journal of Production Research (2 papers), International Journal of Production Economics (1 paper), Vilkalpa, IIM-Ahmedabad journal (1 paper), Decision, IIM-Calcutta journal (1 paper), Italian OR Society Journal (1 paper), Journal of Mathematical Finance (1 paper).  Further, he has over 10 articles at various stages of publication in premier journals. He served as a co-advisor and dissertation committee member of 5 Ph.D. students at Carnegie Mellon, University of Cincinnati, and HEC School of Management, Paris. Further, he served as a referee for over fifteen international journals in his career.

In addition, he guided over 25 MBA thesis projects in the Lam Family College of Business.

Ramesh's biographic data has been published for ten consecutive years in "Marquis Who is Who in World", Marquis Who is Who in America", "Marquis Who is Who in Science and Engineering", and "Manchesters Who is Who" and "Scholar Universe". He has received multiple stock option awards and several management awards from Bell Labs' president and vice-president for outstanding contributions to Bell Labs and Lucent business units during his career there. He also has a few patents for his work at Bell Labs.

Ramesh was also named Research Professor of the Year for two consecutive years (2005-2006, 2004-2005) by the Lam Family College of Business for excellence in research across over 100 full-time faculty members in the Lam Family College of Business.

He was a semi-finalist for the Franz Edelman Award in 2016-17 as well as 2008-2009, a finalist for the Wagner Prize in 2003-2004, and his group at Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies, helped win the INFORMS Prize for the company in 1998.

Over the past fifteen years, Ramesh has been invited to conduct research and teach doctoral courses at top research universities in the U.S. (Carnegie Mellon) and abroad (HEC School of Management, Paris; ISB-Hyderabad, IIM-Ahmedabad, India, Politecnico di Torino, Italy; Helsinki School of Economics, Finland; Cork Constraint Optimization center, Cork, Ireland; the University of Nice, Nice, France; Administrative Staff College, Hyderabad, India.

Ramesh has professional certifications in Advanced Consulting Skills, SAP Manufacturing Planning and Management, Wireless Networking, Data Networking, and Optical Networking.

He is a current member of INFORMS and a past member of IEEE and AAAI. He referred several papers for Management Science, Operations Research, and IEEE. He also organized companywide Operations Research and Operations Management seminar talks in Lucent and research roundtable talks in the Lam Family College of Business. He served as the chair of JFRC (Junior Faculty Research Consortium) at the Lam Family College of Business for the academic year 2004-2005.

Ramesh has served as a member of the HRTP (Hiring, Retention, Tenure, and Promotion) committee in the Lam Family College of Business for over 10 years and served as Chair of HRTP for two years. He served on the Professional Development and Research Committee (PDRC) at the College of Business for over 5 years. He also served as chair of the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee at the college level for the academic year 2015-16.

He served on the SFSU Academic Senate (Curriculum Review & Approval Committee) from 2005-2008. He is a faculty advisor for the Indian students Association of SFSU (2005-current), the Indian Graduates Association (2008-current), and the India Dance Organization (2008-current).

Ramesh served on the Faculty Honors and Awards Committee (FHAC) at the university level from 2014-2021, and further served as Chair of the FHAC committee from 2015-2017. 

His other interests include traveling (visited 25 countries and 100 cities, for research, teaching, and leisure), and Philanthropy (contributes extensively to charitable organizations in U.S. and India).

A firm believer that in addition to one's own hard work, someone else is behind a person's success, Ramesh attributes his academic career as well as personal accomplishments in life to the tremendous love, constant support, patience, and dedication of his parents (Rajarao Bollapragada and Managatayaru Dulla Bollapragada). He further thanks to all the help and support from his family; his brothers Srinivas, Suresh, and Mohan, his wife Dr. Rama, a renowned Pediatric Intensive care Physician,  his two wonderful kids who are the love of his life, daughter Trisha Manorama (Trisha) and son Krishna Rajaram (Krishna).

Education: 

• B.S. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, India.
• M.S. in Systems and Control Engineering, India.
• M.S. in Management of Manufacturing and Automation, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA.
• Ph.D. in Management of Manufacturing and Automation, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA.

Research Interests: 

• Inventory and Supply Chain Management
• Economic Lot-sizing and Scheduling
• Telecommunication Network Planning
• Application of Operations Research Models
• Forecasting, Quality, Transportation Models

Honors and Awards: 

• Lam-Larsen Distinguished Research Professorship Awards (2021-2023)
• Visiting Professor, School of Engineering, University of California at Berkeley, USA. (2017)
• Visiting Research Professor, Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, India (Summer 2016)
• Visiting Professor, MBA program, University of Nice, Nice, France (Spring 2008 through Spring 2021)
• Semi-finalist for INFORMS Franz Edelman Award, 2016 (2016)
• Visiting Research Professor, Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, India (Summer 2014)
• Invited Speaker, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India (Summer 2014)
• Invited Speaker, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, India (Summer 2014)
• Outstanding teaching achievements at MBA and Undergraduate levels. Taught a total of 30 MBA courses and 50 Undergraduate courses in the past 18 years at SFSU. The average course rating is 1.6 out of 5 (1 – Excellent, 5 – Poor) (2012)
• Visiting Professor, Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley, USA. (2011)
• Invited Speaker, Google's Forecasting Research group, Mountainview Headquarters, California, USA (2010)
• Invited Speaker, Department of IEOR, U.C Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA (2010)
• Invited Speaker, Stanford University, Terman Engineering Center, Northern Informs Chapter, Palo Alto, California, USA (2010)
• Visiting Professor, HEC School of Management, Paris, France (2010)
• Semi-finalist for INFORMS Franz Edelman Award, 2009 (2009)
• Biographic Listing in Marquis Who is Who in the World (2007-2017)
• Biographic Listing in Marquis Who is Who in Science and Engineering (2007-2017)
• Biographic Listing in Marquis Who is Who in America (2007-2017)
• Visiting Professor, HEC School of Management, Paris, France (2008-2009)
• Early Tenure and Promotion to Associate Professor, SFSU, CA (2007)
• Appeared on San Francisco TV, Radio for research on improving the efficiency of FASTRAK (Bridge toll collection system) for Bay area bridges. This work appeared in 20 newspapers in the State of California. (2007)
• Visiting Professor, Department of Operations Management, Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad, India (2007)
• Research Professor of Year Award (2005-2006) Lam Family College of Business, SFSU (2006)
• Visiting Professor, University College, Cork, Ireland (2006)
• Appointed as Adjunct Professor (Docent), Logistics Department, Helsinki School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland (2006)
• "Outstanding Faculty Advisor Award", Leadership in Action 2005-2006, Office of International Educaiton, SFSU, CA (2006)
• Visiting Professor, Helsinki School of Economics, Finland (2005)
• U.S. Patent 6917816, Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=6917816 (2005)
• Research Professor of Year Award (2004-2005) Lam Family College of Business, SFSU (2005)
• Visiting Professor, Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University (2005)
• Biographic Listing, Scholar Universe (2005)
• Visiting Professor, Administrative Staff College, Hyderabad, India (2004)
• Visiting Professor, Politecnico Di Torino, Torino, Italy (2004)
• Finalist for INFORMS Wagner Prize Competition, 2003 (2003)
• Visiting Professor, Administrative Staff College, Hyderabad, India (2003)
• Biographic Listing in Manchesters Who is Who (2002)
• Patent submission: Methods for analyzing network configurations (2002)
• Bell Labs Vice-President Team Award on Lucent Configurators Project (2002)
• Lucent CEO Stock option award for outstanding company contributions (2001)
• Lucent CEO Stock option award for outstanding company contributions (2000)
• Bell Labs President Team Award on Wireless Network Planning Project (2000)
• Philanthropic Recognition: Director, Statue of Liberty/ Ellis Island (2000)
• Lucent CEO Stock option award for outstanding company contributions (1999)
• Bell Labs. President Excellence Award on Inventory Management Project (1999)
• Research Fellowship, Computer Science Dept, Carnegie Mellon University (1994-1996)
• Excellence in Teaching, School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University (1993-1996)
• William Larimer Fellowship, Business School, Carnegie Mellon University (1991-1994)
• Best Engineer Award, Hyderabad, India (1989)
• Graduate Research Fellowship, Hyderabad, India (1988-1989)
• National Merit Scholarship, Hyderabad, India (1984-1988)
• 1st Rank(General Proficiency), St. Paul's High School, Hyderabad, India