Dennis Galletta is an AIS Fellow, LEO (AIS lifetime achievement award) winner, Distinguished Member Cum Laude, and former President of AIS (2007-2008). He is currently Thomas O'Brien Professor of Information Systems and was business school-wide Director of the PhD Program from 2012-2025 at the School of Business, University of Pittsburgh, where he has been since 1985. He currently serves as Academic Director of the DBA program since 2021. In February 2016 he won a Provost's Mentorship award at Pitt for working with his doctoral students. On February 1, 2023, his O'Brien Chair became effective, and previously, in September 2016, he became a Ben L. Fryrear Faculty Fellow. He won Katz Excellence in Research Awards in 2008, 2013, 2015, and 2021; and a Katz Service Award in 2020.
He earned his doctorate in 1985 at the University of Minnesota (advisor: Gordon B. Davis) with a major in management information systems and a minor in psychology. He teaches Human-Computer Interaction (PhD and MBA students), Information Systems (MBA students and executives), and Electronic Commerce (MBA students and undergraduates). For eleven years until the pandemic (2009 to 2019), Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences invited him to teach Electronic Commerce Strategies and/or Human Factors in Information Systems Design to summer program graduate students and in Spring 2015 and Spring 2016, through their Extension School, the latter course in an on-line format. He has fond memories of the time he spent with a great set of colleagues at the Fox School of Business and Management, Temple University during the 2004-2005 academic year.
His specific research interests lie in the areas behavioral security and end-user attitudes, behavior, and performance. He has published articles in journals such as MIS Quarterly, Management Science, Information Systems Research, Journal of MIS, Journal of AIS, Communications of the ACM, European Journal of Information Systems, Decision Sciences, AIS Transactions on Human-Computer Interaction, Communications of the AIS, Accounting Management and Information Technologies, Information & Management, and Data Base, among others. He is co-author of the 6th (2016) and 7th (2020) editions of Pearlson, Saunders, and Galletta (formerly Pearlson & Saunders) Managing and Using Information Systems (Wiley), and also published a COBOL textbook with Prentice-Hall in 1985.
In the most recent survey of top MIS researchers (Communications of the AIS, V. 24, Article 14, see pg. 231), he was tied for #9 on that list, and elsewhere (AIS Transactions on HCI, V. 1, Issue 3, Article 1, see pg. 92) he was #2 in research productivity in human factors in information systems. An ISR paper he co-authored in 2009 won a 2013 Emerald Citation of Excellence award as one of the top 50 management, business, and economics articles of 2009. The article is "User awareness of security countermeasures and its impact on information systems misuse: A deterrence approach," ISR, 2009, V. 20, No. 1, pp. 79-98 (from John's thesis at Temple University), and the authors are John D'Arcy, Anat Hovav, and D. Galletta. The award is based on number of citations as well as votes from a judging panel.
He is, or has been, on the editorial boards of journals such as MIS Quarterly (SE, 2019-2021; AE, 1999-2002), Information Systems Research (AE, 2006-2008), Journal of MIS (Feb. 2010-present), Journal of AIS (SE, July 2008 to 2012; board member, 2005-2008), Data Base,(AE 1993-1995; SE 1996-2011; Pre-eminent Scholars Board, 2012-present), Canadian Journal of Administrative Science (AE, 2006-2009), International Journal of Information Systems and Management (2006-2008), Information Systems and eBusiness Management (board member, 2003-2008), and Cycle Time Research (AE, 1996-2005). He is also an active reviewer for at least 10 other journals and conferences. He also founded "AIS inPractice," which merged with "Science2Practice," reports top journal results to a practitioner audience, and hopefully makes AIS worth our graduates continuing their membership as full practitioner members. He is on the editorial board for a new AI-driven site that merges all efforts for reaching out to practice and automatically creates the practitioner versions at scale.
From 2009-2019, he was Co-Editor in Chief of AIS Transactions on HCI, the first Transactions approved for AIS (which he co founded in 2008 with Ping Zhang). His Co-Editors over that span were Ping Zhang, Joe Valacich, and Paul Lowry. He and Ping also edited two books on HCI in MIS, part of the Zwass Advances in MIS series. They were fortunate to have gotten and published 37 fine manuscripts from 72 authors, most who require no introduction. Many reflect on their specialty areas of a decade or more of work. He served as co-program chair of ICIS 2005 with David Avison and co-chaired ICIS 2011 in Shanghai with TP Liang. The conference was a success, attracting 1,180 attendees, while we budgeted for 1,100. For the AMCIS conference in August 2003, he served as AMCIS co-program chair with Jeanne Ross and he chaired the Inaugural AMCIS (then called the "AIS Americas Conference on Information Systems) in 1995. We had twelve "firsts" for an IS conference: First Americas conference, first electronic submissions, first electronic reviews, first time papers were available to discussants and attendees via the web a month before the conference, first on-line IS placement system, first joint AMCIS-ICIS placement, first software demonstrations, first dinner cruise as a social event, first "IS Connection," first casual dress, first on-line registration, and first on-line payment of conference fees.
He was the Editor-In-Chief of ISWorld (2002-2007), until it became folded into the AIS website as AISWorld. He served as the ICIS Treasurer from 1994-1998, and was VP of Member Services for AIS from 2001-2003, where he introduced the concept of SIGs (special interest groups) in AIS. He was also a member of AIS Council representing the Americas in 1996 and 1997, and again joined Council in 2012 as ICIS representative.
He once taught information systems courses on the Fall 1999 voyage of Semester at Sea. As a CPA, he has public accounting experience and long ago taught Continuing Professional Education courses for the Pennsylvania Institute of CPAs and Half Moon Seminars. On Sunday evenings, he used to teach 10th, 11th, and 12th grade CCD (during various years) at St. Catherine of Sweden Church in the North Hills of Pittsburgh, where he also served on the Finance Committee. His favorite hobby is an obsession: digital photography, undoubtedly costing him a publication a year! He took all the photos on this site except the one of himself above (taken by Dave Eargle). He especially enjoys shooting portraits of his grandkids as well as getting shots of the amazing Milky Way, Saturn, lightning, comets, and fireworks. And he is learning a great deal about portraiture using softboxes and Alien Bees studio lights, thanks to many faculty, staff, and student guinea pigs here at Katz.
Social & Behavioral Research certificate: Record ID 64894823, expiration date 1/3/2029.
Responsible Conduct of Research certificate. Certificate ID 64894824, expiration date 1/2/2029.
Last updated February 5, 2026