Susan Cholette

Susan Cholette, Ph.D.

Professor
Mondays 4:00pm-5:00pm via Zoom Appointment
Phone: (415) 405-2173
Email: cholette@sfsu.edu
Location: BUS 206C
Office Hours:
Mon: 12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. In-Person at BUS 206C (FALL 2024)
Wed: 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. In-Person at DTC (FALL 2024)
Role
Faculty
Department
Decision Sciences

 

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

Faculty Spotlight: 

Decision Sciences Professor Susan Cholette’s early career was industry-focused - her research background in building large scale economic models that tracked greenhouse gas emissions and her desire to stay rooted in the Bay Area led to positions in supply chain consulting and project management. Through a stroke of luck, Cholette was presented with an opportunity to work in academia. Today, after two decades as a professor, she still brings her industry experiences into the classroom as a powerful tool for teaching students to build skills in forecasting, inventory management, and more.

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Biography:

Susan Cholette is Professor of Decision Sciences in the Lam Family College of Business at San Francisco State University where she teaches graduate and undergraduate classes in operations, supply chain management and project management. Prior to her university appointment, she served as a project manager at Nonstop Solutions (now Manhattan Associates) and as a supply chain consultant for Aspen Technologies. She earned her Ph.D. in Operations Research at Stanford University and her BSE in Electrical Engineering at Princeton University.

Her primary research interests concern supply chain efficiency and sustainability, especially for the food and beverage sectors. She has published in diverse academic journals including: Interfaces, International Journal of Production Research, International Journal of Production Economics, Supply Chain Forum: an International Journal, Journal of Cleaner Production, Journal of Consumer Marketing, Informs Transactions on Education, Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications, International Journal of Pricing and Revenue Management, International Journal of Wine Business Research, Journal of Global Marketing, International Journal of Wine Marketing. She has contributed an invited chapter to the anthology Green Technologies in Food Production and Processing.

In addition to her duties at SF State, she has taught a variety of short courses elsewhere within California, France and Italy, and she is active in the business community, serving as Scholarship Director for Women in Logisitics. She was one of the founders of the Bay Area Green Supply Chain Forum and is on the Board of Directors of PulpWorks, Inc, a startup providing greener and safer alternatives to plastic packaging. In what remains of her spare time she enjoys hiking, kayaking, skiing and travelling.

She has prepared for and taught classes at both graduate and undergraduate levels in statistics, operations, supply chain management, and project management, as well as served as an adviser for graduate level research projects.   At the moment she is currently Chair of Decision Sciences.

Education: 

  • B.S in Electrical Engineering with an emphasis in Engineering Management Systems (1989), Princeton University
  • Ph.D. in Operations Research (1996), Stanford University

Research Interests: 

  • Supply Chain Management
  • Wine Industry Analysis
  • Sustainable Distribution Systems

Honors and Awards: 

  • Lam-Larsen Distinguished Teaching Professorship Award (2021-2023)
  • 2013: CSU “Campus as A living Lab” Grant: Analyzing the Embedded Greenhouse Emissions Associated with Transportation of Goods and Services for SFSU
  • 2009: CSUSB Leonard Transportation Center Seed Grant Recipient

  • 2007 SF State Vice President Assigned Time Award

  • 2005-7 BIE Grant

Professional Associations: 

  • INFORMS (1996-Present)
  • Scholarship Director, Women in Logistics (2003-Present)
  • Board of Directors, Pulpworks (2013-Present)