SHA 2023 Request for Interdisciplinary Pilot Project Proposals
The School of Hospitality Administration (SHA) at Boston University produces cutting-edge research to define the future of a rapidly-evolving hospitality industry, in line with the School’s mission to enhance human interactions in the broader service economy. SHA faculty have research expertise across a variety of functional domains—including but not limited to analytics, machine learning applications, pricing and distribution strategies, industrial-organizational psychology, marketing, and experience, financial, and human resource management—and their research spans the breath of application domains including hospitality, healthcare, senior living, retail, and entertainment, among others.
To support interdisciplinary BU teams interested in exploring innovative research in hospitality, SHA announces its inaugural call for proposals for pilot grants for up to $20,000 per project. The principal investigator (PI), or at least one co-PI, must be SHA faculty. Other team members can be from any college or department at BU; teams drawn from diverse fields of study are strongly preferred. CV and research profiles for current SHA research faculty can be found at the bottom of this page. Researchers from outside SHA can reach out to a SHA faculty member using the contact details provided in their CV/faculty page below.
The research team must have a plan for how to leverage the results generated by this pilot funding to secure larger-scale, external support. The research team must also clearly demonstrate how the research will be published in academic journals in the field of hospitality, and can also include a plan for additional publications in other fields. Applications for up to $20,000 of funding will be considered for these 1-year awards. A total of up to 3 such awards will be granted. Proposals will be reviewed by a committee comprised of leadership from SHA and BU Foundation Relations and Federal Relations.
Application Deadline: July 15, 2023
The application should include the following:
- Cover sheet with project title, and names, affiliations, and contact information of all PIs and Co-PIs
- Current CV of PIs and Co-PIs
- Research proposal (5 pages maximum; references do not count towards page limit), which must include the following:
- Research background, including research question/objective/hypotheses, and project significance
- Methodology
- Plan for securing larger-scale external funding
- Plan for disseminating research via academic outlets in hospitality/other fields
- Budget Outline (does not count towards page limit): Funding can be used for personnel time (including PI and/or Co-PI), research infrastructure, research dissemination, advocacy support, or towards policy reform. The funding is not intended to support conferences, seminars, or symposia.
Please submit the entire application as one single-spaced PDF to mmody@bu.edu.
Important Dates
May 15, 2023: Applications open for the 2023 RFP
July 15, 2023: Application deadline
July 24, 2023: Notification of awardees
August 1, 2023: Award start date
Please direct any questions to Makarand Mody, Director of Research, School of Hospitality Administration at mmody@bu.edu.
SHA Research Faculty
Apostolos Ampountolas, Ph.D.
Dr. Apostolos Ampountolas, Ph.D., CQF, FHEA, is an Assistant Professor of Finance and Revenue Management. He holds a Ph.D. in Management from the University of Exeter in the UK and a Certificate of Quantitative Finance from the CQF Institute. With over 18 years of experience in the travel and hospitality industry, he has developed extensive expertise and has provided consulting services to companies in the industry sector. Throughout his career, Dr. Ampountolas has specialized in pricing optimization models and revenue performance, supporting European companies seeking to enhance their financial performance. Today, as an academic and researcher, he focuses on finance and data analytics, including pricing optimization and revenue management, risk management, forecasting model analyses, financial analysis of companies’ performance, volatility in investment markets, investment behavior, and high-dimensional big data analyses using machine learning techniques and consumer choice models. Dr. Ampountolas is an active member of the International Institute of Forecasters (IIF), the Association of Accountants and Financial Professionals in Business (IMA), and the INFORMS Revenue Management and Pricing Section.
Link to CV
Learn more about Apostolos Ampountolas
Richard A. Currie, Ph.D.
Dr. Currie’s research interests center around work-related social stressors and the impacts of these stressors on affective, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes for employees. In particular, he studies the antecedents and impacts of intraorganizational competition, social nosiness and privacy invasion perpetrated by others at work, as well as illegitimate work requests made by supervisors and customers, especially as it pertains to work in the hospitality industry. More recently, Dr. Currie’s research has begun to explore the impact of vocation and career-related beliefs and values on vocational and organizational behavior outcomes. In addition to publishing in leading academic journals, he regularly presents his research in prominent research conferences and conventions such as those for the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology as well as the Association for Psychological Science. Moreover, Dr. Currie disseminates his research in non-academic media outlets and forums including the Boston Hospitality Review and the Business of Hospitality Lecture Series and contributes to panels such as those organized by Hospitality Consulting Solutions and the Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Link to CV
Learn more about Richard Currie
Sean Jung, Ph.D.
I find interest in research related to finding optimal business strategy solutions for the service industries. More specifically, I find interest in studies such as spatial cooperation or diffusion among service industries, recession weathering strategies for leisure products, and identifying service quality using financial accounts are the type of research that I have done over the years. I also have interest in whether algorithms can identify level of service which is related to machine learning applications in service sector industries. My current research in this field is to investigate whether machine learning algorithms can outperform in predicting the optimal number of restaurants within a given spatial bound when comparing with traditional regression-based models.
Link to CV
Learn More about Sean Jung
Yunmei (Mabel) Bai, Ph.D.
Dr. Yunmei (Mabel) Bai has both operational and analytics working experience in the lodging industry prior to working in the academia. For her research, Dr. Bai focuses on revenue management application and price optimization in the hospitality sector. For example, she proposed an analytical model that prescribes the optimal bid prices for hotel group business. Also, she developed a game theoretical model to investigate the optimal online distribution channel management strategies with add-on pricing. Dr. Bai is also interested in consumer experience and behavior research in the service industry. For example, she analyzed how diners process menu information to cope with the ordering risk at casual dining restaurants. Plus, she is currently conducting research in senior dining technologies as well as affordable senior living.
Link to CV
Learn More about Mabel Bai