Debanjan Mitra

Mitra receives Early Career Contribution Award from American Marketing Association

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – City Furniture Professor Dr. Debanjan Mitra was selected as the recipient of the 2013 Varadarajan Award for Early Career Contribution to Marketing Strategy Research presented by the American Marketing Association (AMA).

The Varadarajan Award “recognizes the contributions of a marketing faculty member who has completed 10 or fewer years after receipt of his/her doctoral degree. The criteria for selection include: The overall impact on marketing strategy research and practice, research quality, research quantity and research leadership.”

“I am overwhelmed to win the prestigious Varadarajan Award,” Dr. Mitra said. “In particular, I am happy that the award committee of senior marketing strategy scholars has noted my work on quality as an integral part of marketing strategy. Quality is elusive; just as in the classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the quest to understand quality has led people to abandonment or insanity—hopefully, not me and my co-researchers. The Varadarajan award definitely motivates us to keep working in this challenging domain.”

Dr. Mitra’s research encompasses the development of quality metrics and an evaluation of its long-term impact on market performance and customers’ perceptions.

Dr. Mitra’s work has been recognized by AMA’s Excellence in Global Marketing Research Award in 2011, Marketing Science Institute (MSI) Young Scholar in 2009, MSI’s Robert D. Buzzell Best Paper Award in 2007, and as a Finalist for INFORMS’ John D.C. Little Best Paper Award and Frank M. Bass Best Dissertation-Based Paper Award in 2006.

Dr. Mitra has been a professor at the Warrington College of Business Administration since 2003. He earned a Bachelor of Technology in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (1988), a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from the Indian Institute of Management (1990) and a Ph.D. in Marketing from New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business (2003).