Faculty

MIT Sloan Professor Bengt Holmström has won the 2016 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Holmström, the Paul A. Samuelson Professor of Economics, was named winner of the award along with Oliver Hart, a professor and economist at Harvard University. The Swedish Academy cited Holmström and Hart for “their contributions to contract theory.” Calling his work “pathbreaking,” Holmstrom’s colleagues are lauding the decision by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.  Holmstrom has held a joint appointment with MIT Sloan and the MIT Department of Economics since 1994.

Adrien Verdelhan and Arnie Barnett were each awarded the 2016 Jamieson Prize for Excellence in Teaching, established to honor educational innovation and excellence. The Jamieson Prize for Excellence in Teaching Award is the most prestigious teaching prize offered by the School. The award was established in 2006 and is awarded each year to two MIT Sloan faculty members, as well as two electrical engineering and computer science faculty members, for their contributions to educational excellence at MIT.

Arnie Barnett and Adrien Verdelhan were each awarded the 2016 Jamieson Prize for Excellence in Teaching, established to honor educational innovation and excellence. The Jamieson Prize for Excellence in Teaching Award is the most prestigious teaching prize offered by the School. The award was established in 2006 and is awarded each year to two MIT Sloan faculty members, as well as two electrical engineering and computer science faculty members, for their contributions to educational excellence at MIT.

John Sterman has won the 2016 Samuel E. Seegal Faculty Prize, in recognition of his having inspired students in pursuing and achieving excellence. The prize is awarded to a faculty member for “pursuing excellence” at either MIT Sloan or the MIT School of Engineering every other year.

Mike Whinston has received the Industrial Organization Society Distinguished Fellow Award, which is given annually in recognition of excellence in research, education, and leadership in the field of Industrial Organization.

Rodrigo Verdi has received the 2016 American Accounting Association (AAA) Distinguished Contribution to Accounting Literature Award, which recognizes “accounting research of exceptional merit that has significantly impacted the discipline over a period of at least five years.” Verdi was recognized for his 2008 paper (co-authored by Holger Daske, University of Mannheim, Luzi Hail, Wharton, and Christian Leuz, Chicago Booth) entitled,“Mandatory IFRS Reporting Around the World: Early Evidence on the Economic Consequences..”

Mark Kritzman has won a 2016 Bernstein Fabozzi/Jacobs Levy Outstanding Article Award. The annual award recognizes research excellence in the theory and practice of portfolio management.  Honorees are chosen by subscriber vote on articles appearing in The Journal of Portfolio Management the prior year. The winning paper, co-authored with Will Kinlaw and David Turkington (both of State Street), is entitled “The Divergence of High- and Low-Frequency Estimation: Implications for Performance  Measurement” (The Journal of Portfolio Management, Vol. 41, No. 3).

Retsef Levi and Tom Magnanti have received the 2016 Harold W. Kuhn Award, an annual prize which recognizes an exceptional paper published in Naval Research Logistics during the previous three years. Their winning paper, co-authored with Jack Muckstadt (Cornell University assistant professor), Danny Segev (University of Haifa), and Eric Zarybnisky (MIT SM ’03, PhD ’11), is entitled “Maintenance Scheduling for Modular Systems: Modeling and Algorithms."

Ross Watts has been inducted into the Australian Accounting Hall of Fame, which honors and celebrates outstanding academic and practitioner contributions to the advancement of accounting in Australia. Watts is the first expatriate inductee.

Ernst Berndt has been recognized with an honorary doctorate from the University of Basel (Switzerland), for his “outstanding academic achievements in the fields of econometrics and health economics.” The university noted Berndt’s “research on the sources of innovation and the measurement of productivity,” as well as the methods he “implemented for adjusting prices of commodities whose characteristics significantly change over time.”