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Atlanta – Yusen Xia, director of the Institute for Insight at Georgia State University’s J. Mack Robinson College of Business, has been named the inaugural holder of the Anne and Michael D. Easterly Distinguished Professorship. The Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia approved the appointment on August 14.
The Anne and Michael D. Easterly Distinguished Professorship was established to support a faculty member who will lead the development of immersive experiential research and learning opportunities for students at the Robinson College of Business and at Georgia State University.
Xia is uniquely qualified for appointment to the professorship, which specified the selection of a professor with expertise in immersive experiential teaching and applied research who would actively participate in building and sustaining curricula, applied research, and co-curricular programs with strategic partners.
A renowned scholar, Xia’s uses data science techniques, including machine learning, deep learning, and generative AI to study ways to improve healthcare delivery, organizational operations, and global supply chains. A prolific author in premier academic and practitioner journals with research supported by the National Science Foundation, Xia is a senior editor of the Production and Operations Management Journal. He joined Georgia State in 2004.
Professor Xia is a decorated faculty member whose honors and recognition include Robinson’s Faculty Recognition Award for Excellence in Research in 2012 and 2017, the Faculty Recognition Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2016, and the MBA Program’s Top Teaching Professor in 2015.He also has received awards for his papers at annual conferences held by the Decision Science Institute and the Academy of Management.
“As director of the Institute for Insight, Yusen has developed industry ties, connected faculty and students to industry, and enhanced research opportunities and academic programs throughout Robinson,” said Richard Phillips, dean of the Robinson College. “He is an accomplished and award-winning scholar, an outstanding teacher, and an active contributing leader in our college.”
Anne Easterly endowed the Anne and Michael D. Easterly Distinguished Professorship to honor her late husband, Michael D. Easterly (MBA ’72). A long-time supporter of Robinson and the university, he chaired the Georgia State University Foundation Board of Trustees and served as president of the Georgia State Alumni Association, receiving the university’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 2005.
Anne Easterly, an alumna of the University of Kentucky, has supported Georgia State’s Women’s Philanthropy Network and the Women’s Collection housed in the Special Collections of the University Library.