Roger Best poses for a photo with award-winning PhD students

Rewarding Excellent PhD Teaching and Fellowship

Roger Best, PhD ’75, believes strongly that publishing and collaborating with professors while still a doctoral student is critical to one’s academic career. And he credits his success to just that.

Since 2014, he and his wife Robin have honored this commitment to advancing PhD careers with doctoral awards that incentivize publishing, conference presentations, collaboration with faculty, and teaching excellence.

Incentive-based funding that supports PhD research and teaching are rare among business schools. In this way, the Best fund also helps the Lundquist College attract students, and encourages faculty undertaking research collaborations with PhD students.

On May 23, 2019, at the annual PhD spring celebration, Lundquist College PhD students were honored with Best research awards and Best teaching awards.

PhD student Aaron McDonald earned a Best Teaching Excellence Award. In addition, the following PhD students received teaching awards

  • Khaled Abdulsalam
  • Hossein Rikhtehgar Berenji
  • Arash Dayani
  • Andrew Edelblum

The following exceptional PhD students earned Best awards for excellence in research for paper submissions, revising and resubmitting papers, research support, or conference presentations.

  • Accounting
    • Zack Fox
  • Finance
    • Arash Dayani
  • Management
    • Hassan Awad
    • Jeff Gish
    • Aaron McDonald
    • Feng Qiu
  • Marketing
    • Aaron Charlton
    • Kivalina Grove
    • Nathan Warren
  • Operations and Business Analytics
    • Hassan Awad
    • Hossein Rikhtehgar Berenji
    • Alireza Yazdani

“Developing a strong research pipeline during the PhD program is critical to long term career success,” said Ryan Wilson, director of the PhD program and Richard W. Lindholm Professor in Taxation. “The Best fund enhances our Oregon PhD student experience beyond that of comparable programs—giving our students the unique opportunity to advance in their profession before leaving our doors.”

The Best fund has awarded more than $160,000 to PhD students and faculty. But the impact on the PhD program and its graduates has been immeasurable—far exceeding that which can be measured in financial value.

—AnneMarie Knepper-Sjoblom ’05, Lundquist College Communications