The purpose of the summer institute is to provide doctoral students who are interested in behavioral research a solid foundation to conduct behavioral operations management (BOM) research. Additionally, we hope that the summer institute will encourage collaboration and the creation of a research community amongst the next generation of researchers.
The schedule will generally be divided into morning and afternoon sessions. The morning sessions will be primarily in lecture format. They will provide an general overview of the behavioral operations management field, review core behavioral economics/psychology topics, and discuss operations management applications. The afternoon sessions will be more focused more on small groups, practicums (e.g., applying ideas to actual research activity), and roundtables (more informal discussions). Throughout the week students will develop a new research idea, which they will pitch and get feedback about on Friday. We typically try to organize a couple of fun events in the evenings. There will also be free time to prepare for the next day, have office hours, pair up to work on ideas, and get to know each other. The tentative schedule is here.
The intended audience for the summer institute is doctoral students completing their 2nd-4th years who have largely finished their foundation coursework and passed their qualifying exams, but still have time to take on new projects before they start the job market process. In general, the summer institute is designed for any student who has already started or is seriously considering conducting behavioral operations management research, broadly defined (e.g., lab experiments, field experiments, analytical models, secondary data). No prior knowledge of behavioral operations management is required to apply. Indeed, the summer institute is designed to help any student interested in behavioral research get a solid foundation in both methodology and the foundational behavioral literature.
More information about applying is here. If you think you (or your PhD student) may be a good fit, please contact the organizers.
There is no cost to apply, and tuition will be free for admitted students. The program includes materials, breakfast and lunch. Attendees will be responsible for their own transportation, accommodations, and dinner expenses. More information about accommodations can be found here.
We have the capacity to accept roughly 30 students and within that constraint will accept as many students as we feel fit the program's objectives. We unfortunately do not have much further information as to the competitiveness of gaining admission.
The organizers will email you a link to the registration page after you have been accepted.
Our plan is to offer the summer institute every other year (in the odd years) - rotating locations among various host schools. The first summer institute was held at the University of Michigan during the summer of 2019. We did not offer the institute in 2021 due to Covid-19. The second summer institute was held at Harvard during the summer of 2023. the third summer institute was held at Wisconsin during the summer of 2025.