Emerging Sustainability Scholars

The ARCS Emerging Sustainability Scholar Award recognizes a scholar in the area of corporate sustainability, who is likely to make significant contributions to the advancement of corporate sustainability scholarship. Given annually, the award is granted in recognition of a scholar’s existing body of research and in anticipation of future work. Recipients provide rigorous and salient contributions that cross-disciplinary and national boundaries.

Nominations for this year’s award are now closed.

Year	Award	Recipient
2024	Scholar	Kate Odziemkowska Bio Kate Odziemkowska is an Assistant Professor, Tenure Stream. Her research focuses on cooperative strategy—formal interorganizational relationships such as alliances or collaborations—in nonmarket settings. More specifically, on how and when strategically aligning with often-adversarial stakeholders, such as social activists, NGOs, and local communities can benefit firms, and the implications for stakeholders and society. Her research explains why cooperative strategy is an increasingly popular approach to managing nonmarket stakeholders, when and why existing theories of interorganizational relationships fail in nonmarket settings, and the critical role conflict and networks play in cooperative nonmarket strategy, In newer projects, she explores how cooperative and conflictual stakeholder relationships affect firm innovation, returns to corporate scope expansion, and political strategies.
2023	Scholar	Aline C. Gatignon Bio Aline Gatignon is an Assistant Professor of Management at the Wharton School. She completed her Ph.D. in Strategic Management at INSEAD, and previously received a M.A. in Development Economics and a B.A. in Political Science from the Paris Institute of Political Science (Sciences Po). Aline’s research explains how firms can collaborate with governments and non-profit organizations to solve large-scale socio-environmental and economic problems of mutual concern. She mainly focuses on how these problems can be overcome in emerging markets, where weaker market-based institutions often make such problems particularly salient. A central characteristic of Aline’s work is that her analyses draw on both qualitative and quantitative data that she collects from the field, across multiple countries and types of organization. The empirical settings that she studies include cosmetics in Brazil, healthcare partnerships in Africa, Corporate Social Responsibility in India, global environmental nonprofits as well as last-mile logistics and corporate disaster response worldwide. As a result, she is able to examine her phenomenon of interest from different angles so as to, over time, build a deep understanding of the mechanisms connecting cross-sector partnerships to social and performance outcomes. Alin’s research and pedagogical case studies on this topic have been recognized with several awards, including the Strategic Management Society Best PhD Paper Award and the European Foundation for Management Development case study competition award. Her work has been listed as part of INSEAD’s “50 Years, 50 Women, 50 Ideas” series and she is the 2023 recipient of the Emerging Sustainability Scholar award from the Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability. She currently serves on the Editorial Board of the Strategic Management Journal and Organization Science.
2022	Scholar	Omar Isaac Asensio Bio Dr. Omar I. Asensio is an Assistant Professor in the School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His research focuses on the intersection of big data and public policy, with applications to energy systems and consumer behavior, smart cities, and machine learning in transportation and electric mobility. He directs the Data Science and Policy Lab at Georgia Tech, where he collaborates with the private sector and city governments on data innovations in policy analysis and research evaluation. He is a faculty affiliate at the Institute for Data Engineering and Science (IDEaS), the Machine Learning Center, and the Strategic Energy Institute. Dr. Asensio’s research has been published in leading journals such as Nature Energy, Nature Sustainability, and PNAS. His work uses statistical and computational tools to advance our understanding of how large-scale civic data and experiments can be used to increase participation in civic processes, while addressing resource conservation and environmental sustainability. Dr. Asensio’s research also has been featured in policy advisory communications by the European Commission, NSF Public Affairs, the World Bank, and national governments — including the U.K., and the IndiaAI initiative.
2021	Scholar	Vanessa Burbano Bio Vanessa Burbano is the Sidney Taurel Associate Professor of Management in the strategy area at Columbia Business School. She was named to Poets and Quants’ 2019 list of Best 40 Business School Professors Under 40. Burbano researches the strategic implications of socially responsible and irresponsible firm practices. Her research has been recognized with awards including those from the Strategic Management Society, the Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability, the Responsible Research in Management Award, the Impact for Investment Research Prize, the Berkeley Sustainable Business and Investment Forum, the International Association of Business & Society, and the Industry Studies Association. Her work has been published in Organization Science, Management Science, Strategic Management Journal, California Management Review, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and Organization & Environment, and has been featured in Forbes, Fortune, The Financial Times, and the New York Times. She holds a Ph.D. from UCLA Anderson School of Management and an M.P.A. from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Prior to academia, she worked as an Associate at Goldman Sachs and as a Strategy Consultant at Monitor Group.
2021	Scholar	Mark DesJardine Bio Mark is an Assistant Professor of Strategy and Sustainability at Pennsylvania State University’s Smeal College of Business. Prior to joining Smeal, Mark was an Assistant Professor of Strategy and Business Policy at HEC Paris, where he taught and oversaw Strategic Management in the MBA program. Focusing on corporate short-termism, Mark’s research intersects strategy, sustainability, and finance. His primary focus is on understanding how investors shape the sustainability of companies and their actions toward other stakeholders. His work has been published in: 1) leading academic journals, such as the Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, and Strategic Management Journal; 2) media outlets, such as Reuters, the New York Times, Bloomberg, Forbes, and the Financial Times; and 3) specialist outlets, such as Harvard Business Review, Principles of Responsible Investing, and Institutional Investor. Mark has won numerous awards for his research, including Best Paper Awards (AOM, SMS, ARCS) and People's Choice Awards (ARCS), as well as the Sumantra Ghoshal Research and Practice Award from the Academy of Management (Strategic Management Division). In 2021, Mark won two Emerging Scholar Awards, one from the Academy of Management (Organizations and the Natural Environment Division) and another from the Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability, a Responsible Research in Management Award from the Academy of Management Fellows Group, and the Best Article Award from the FIR-Principles of Responsible Investment. Mark serves on the Editorial Boards of Strategic Management Journal, Organization Science, and Organization & Environment, and is a Representative-at-Large of the Stakeholder Interest Group of the Strategic Management Society. Mark is a CFA Charterholder and holds a PhD from Western University’s Ivey Business School, where he was awarded the Governor General’s Gold Medal. Outside work, Mark is an avid outdoorsman who enjoys mountain biking, kayaking, and camping.
2020	Scholar	Hao LIANG Bio Hao Liang is an Assistant Professor of Finance at Singapore Management University. His research examines the roles of corporate social responsibility, corporate governance, and sustainable investment in the development of financial markets. His research has appeared in several top journals including the Journal of Corporate Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Finance, Management Science, and Organization Science. With a Ph.D. date of 2015, his 11 published papers, 6 of which are in top journals with another R&R at a top journal in the pipeline, is highly impressive. His research impact is further evidenced by the over 900 google scholar citations of his work. Here more about Professor Liang's research by watching this presentation. https://youtu.be/JTZPy2bnmyg
2019	Scholar	Olga Hawn Bio The research of Olga Hawn lies at the intersection of strategy and organization theory, business and society. In particular, Dr. Hawn is engaged in multidisciplinary research on non-market strategy, including environmental, social and corporate governance activities of the firm with a focus on the strategic impact of such activities, their antecedents and consequences in developed and emerging markets. Other interests include international expansion of multinationals from emerging markets, such as how firms from BRICS can succeed in cross-border M&As and overcome the negative perceptions caused by their origin as well as the role of business incubators in emerging markets.
2019	Scholar	Basak Kalkanci Bio Basak Kalkanci is an Assistant Professor of Operations Management at the Georgia Institute of Technology Scheller College of Business. Her current research focuses on socially and environmentally responsible supply chain management, behavioral operations management, supply risk management, contracting and information sharing in supply chains. She earned her Ph.D in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University in 2010 and her B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Bogazici University (Turkey) in 2004. She worked as a postdoctoral associate at MIT before joining Georgia Tech.
2018	Scholar	Shon Hiatt Bio Shon Hiatt is an Assistant Professor of Business Administration at USC Marshall School of Business. He explores issues related to entrepreneurship, new-market emergence, and innovation in developed and developing economies. He is particularly known for this work in the agribusiness and energy sectors. Dr. Hiatt’s productivity as a junior scholar is impressive, as evidenced by his publications in top-tier management journals including Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Strategic Management Journal, and Organization Science (3), accompanied by numerous other journal publications, book chapters, and working papers. In 2016, Dr. Hiatt was awarded the ONE Division of the Academy of Management’s Emerging Scholar Award which recognizes “early career academics who have already made outstanding research contributions in the area of organizations and the natural environment, and who appear to have a strong potential to continue making such contributions in the near future.” He has also won seven best paper awards from the Academy of Management (ONE and OMT Divisions), ARCS (2014 Outstanding Paper Award and 2016 People’s Choice Award), and other major management conferences. Finally he’s won several research awards, including a Kauffman Foundation Junior Faculty Fellowship and Greif Center for Entrepreneurship research award.
2018	Scholar	Sarah E. Light Bio Sarah E. Light is an Assistant Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research examines issues at the intersection of environmental law and business innovation. Her articles have addressed the regulatory implications of the rise of transportation platforms like Uber and Lyft; how business innovation, such as Microsoft’s adoption of a private carbon fee, can be a form of private environmental governance; and the U.S. military’s role in stimulating private technological innovation to reduce fossil fuel use. Dr. Light’s productivity as a junior scholar is impressive, as evidenced by her publications in top-tier law outlets such as the Duke Law Journal, the UCLA Law Review, the Vanderbilt Law Review, the Emory Law Journal and the Stanford Environmental Law Journal, among others. In 2015, Dr. Light was awarded the Haub Environmental Law Distinguished Junior Scholar Award, an award “presented annually to an emerging junior environmental law professor who exhibits scholarly excellence and promise at an early stage in his/her career,” which is based on “nominations from law professors throughout the country.” She has received four other prestigious awards for her publications, as well as the 2016 ARCS People’s Choice Award.