Yossi Aviv, PhD, was installed March 5 as the Dan Broida Professor of Operations & Manufacturing Management at Olin Business School.
The professorship was established in 1984 by Roma Broida Wittcoff, an alumna and trustee emeritus of Washington University in St. Louis, in memory of her first husband, Daniel Broida, who died in 1981.
Aviv joined Olin in 1997 after earning a PhD in management science from Columbia University. Before pursuing his PhD, he earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and worked for the Israeli Defense Ministry Research and Development Directorate.
In his research, Aviv develops and applies operations research models and methods to study problems related to supply chain management and revenue management.
His earlier research focused on inventory management in supply chains, collaborative forecasting and the value of information sharing. In recent years, Aviv’s work has been in the area of revenue management and dynamic pricing, exploring the effects of demand learning, strategic consumer behavior and innovative pricing schemes.
Aviv’s research has been published in leading academic journals, such as Management Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management and Operations Research. One of his recently published papers was recognized with the 2011 INFORMS Revenue Management and Pricing Section Prize, which is awarded for the best contribution to the science of pricing and revenue management.
Aviv serves as the operations and manufacturing management area chair at Olin. He has taught courses on quantitative decision modeling, operations management and supply chain management in the school’s undergraduate, MBA, Professional MBA and PhD programs as well as in the Executive MBA program in Shanghai.
Daniel Broida & Roma Broida Wittcoff
Broida earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from WUSTL in 1936. With two fellow alumni of the university, he founded Sigma Chemical Company, now Sigma-Aldrich Corp., in the late 1930s.
The firm’s main product during World War II was saccharin, which was used during the sugar rationing. After the war, the company moved into producing adenosine triphosphate, a fundamental source of energy in all living cells.
At the time of Broida’s death, Sigma International Limited, which he led as chief executive officer, was recognized worldwide as a major contributor to medical research.
In 1975, Mr. Broida received a Distinguished Alumni Award from the School of Engineering & Applied Science. WUSTL added a Distinguished Alumni citation in 1978.
Wittcoff, now a trustee emeritus, was elected to the university’s Board of Trustees in 1984. A longtime supporter of the university, she has helped fund numerous building projects, program initiatives and scholarships, including an endowed Broida Scholarship in engineering.
She served on national councils for the Brown School and for the School of Medicine. She also has served as a member of the Alumni Board of Governors.
WUSTL presented her with the Robert S. Brookings Award in 1993.