Exeter Fellow Dr Kejia Hu wins Rising Star Award

Exeter College Fellow by Special Election and Associate Professor of Management Science Dr Kejia Hu has recently won the inaugural Mary Jo Bitner “Rising Star in Services” Award. The award ceremony took place at the 18th International Research Symposium on Service Excellence in Management (QUIS18) in Hanoi, Vietnam. Dr Hu was one of two winners, the other being Kaisa Koksela-Huotari from the Stockholm School of Economics.

The “Rising Star” Award commemorates scholars who have significantly contributed to the services discipline early in their careers. The honour is named for Mary Jo Bitner, one of the founders of the study of service marketing. Professor Bitner has committed her extensive career to the study of customer service, customer-employee interactions, servicescapes (how physical surroundings affect customers and employees), and technology-delivered service.

Dr Hu joined Exeter College this year from Vanderbilt University. She was also recently named one of the “40-Under-40 MBA Professors” by the business media outlet Poets & Quants. Her research explores how we can unlock business value from data. She has collaborated with industry giants like L’Oreal, Marriott International, Dell, Alibaba, Nissan, and TikTok.

Dr Hu said about the Award, “Receiving the Rising Star Award encourages me to continue my ground-breaking research at the University of Oxford, and it underscores our commitment to producing impactful, real-world research.”

Congratulations to Dr Hu for this special achievement!