NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Donna L. Hoffman and Thomas P. Novak, professors of marketing at the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University, have been named Distinguished Graduate Alumni by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
To mark the centennial of the UNC Chapel Hill Graduate School, each graduate study program at the university submitted the names of its most distinguished graduate school alumni for consideration as Distinguished Graduate Alumni. Hoffman and Novak were nominated by the psychology department. They both earned their master’s and doctorate degrees in quantitative psychology from the L.L. Thurstone Psychometric Laboratory at UNC Chapel Hill.
Hoffman, an internationally recognized scholar in electronic commerce and Internet marketing, joined the Owen School faculty in 1993. Her widely published academic research efforts on Internet marketing strategy and e-commerce policy have been the subject of numerous newspaper and broadcast reports.
Novak has been on the Owen School faculty since 1993. His research since then has focused exclusively on Internet- and Web-based commerce. His current research areas include measuring the online consumer experience, online advertising, Internet marketing strategy and electronic commerce policy.
In 1994 Hoffman and Novak co-founded eLab, a pioneering research center that The New York Times has called one of the “premier research centers in the world for the study of electronic commerce.” Hoffman and Novak recently were awarded a grant by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to establish the Vanderbilt University Sloan Center for Internet Retailing at the Owen School. The Sloan Center will study the enormous challenges facing this dynamic and rapidly evolving industry, focusing on the Internet retailing customer chain. The Sloan Center will leverage eLab’s unique virtual lab research infrastructure to pursue much of its research.
In 1999, Hoffman and Novak were voted the top two Internet scientists in the world in an international survey of more than 600 U.S. and European scientists and marketing managers.
“Donna Hoffman and Tom Novak each excelled in graduate studies, not only in course work but also by completing creative research for a master’s thesis and a doctoral dissertation,” said Lyle V. Jones, distinguished professor emeritus at the L.L. Thurstone Psychometric Laboratory at UNC Chapel Hill. “In addition, they constructively challenged their faculty to defend the relevance of the elements of their training, thereby serving interests of fellow and future students in the graduate program. I’m pleased to have worked both with Donna and Tom, and I commend them for their outstanding personal and career successes,” he added.
Media contact: Susanne Loftis, 615-322-NEWS, susanne.loftis@vanderbilt.edu