Gregory Prastacos
Dean
Dr. Prastacos has served as the dean of the Stevens School of Business since February 2012. Under his leadership, the school has evolved from a narrowly focused school of technology management to an accredited business school within a leading technology university. He spearheaded the creation of a Digital Transformation Affinity Group within AACSB International that is charged with developing management curricula for the digital era; he is principal investigator of this MaCuDE project.
Before joining Stevens, Dr. Prastacos was professor and rector at the Athens University of Economics and Business, in Greece. During his more than 30 years at AUEB, he led a major international expansion, significantly enriched the university’s academic programs, improved the finances of the university and initiated new corporate social responsibility activities. He also has taught at Columbia University, where he earned his doctoral degree, and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
He is an internationally recognized scholar in the field of operations research, and has received many distinctions and awards for his contributions to the field of management, including:
The First World Prize in the Practice of Management Science (Edelman Award), awarded by the Institute for Management Sciences for significant contributions in inventory management and logistics.
The Honorary Medal for significant achievements in operations research by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences.
Election as a fellow of the Washington Academy of Sciences, for significant contributions in operations research and applications in health care management.
He has led more than 25 major research projects, published eight books, and contributed more than 60 papers in international academic journals and edited volumes.
View the Oct 2023 Dean's quarterly newsletter.
Chihoon Lee
Associate Dean, Graduate Division
Dr. Lee is a full professor at Stevens School of Business who was appointed as an associate dean in 2020. Prior to joining Stevens, Prof. Lee was an assistant/associate professor of statistics at Colorado State University. He holds a Ph.D. in statistics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and B.A. degrees in Mathematics and Statistics from Seoul National University, in South Korea. He was a recipient of the Early Career Statistician Award from the Korean Statistical Society and has served as an associate editor of the Journal of Korean Statistical Society since 2011.
Dr. Lee’s research lies within the disciplines of applied probability (stochastic networks and financial engineering) and statistics (inference and prediction for stochastic processes), but also crosses the boundaries between the two toward developing analytical tools that facilitate the use of data to improve large-scale service operations. His research has been published in Production and Operations Management, Mathematics of Operations Research, European Journal of Operational Research, Journal of Applied Probability and Scientific Reports.
He is a member of INFORMS, the Applied Probability Society and is a lifetime member of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics.
Joelle Saad-Lessler
Associate Dean, Undergraduate Division
Dr. Saad-Lessler is a labor economist with expertise in econometric modeling, statistical programming and in-depth data analysis. She holds bachelor’s and doctoral degrees in Economics from Columbia University, in New York.
Dr. Saad-Lessler’s recent research centers on the economics of retirement. She is currently working on a project that investigates the importance of collectivism in explaining the shortfall of retirement savings. Collectivism is a system whereby people informally “invest” in relationships with their networks of family and friends, in lieu of saving formally in a retirement plan. Her work has attracted notable funding from the National Endowment for Financial Education, and has been published in reports from the National Institute on Retirement Security and the Center for American Progress, among others. She has served as an associate dean at the Stevens School of Business since 2019.
Brian Rothschild
Assistant Dean of Graduate Studies and Senior Director of Graduate Management Programs
Dr. Rothschild is a higher education leader with over 25 years of experience running graduate-level programs, developing and implementing strategic enrollment management plans, and fostering collaborative relationships across various stakeholders. He holds an Ed.D. in Organizational Leadership from Nova Southeastern University.
Dr. Rothschild oversees the MBA, AMBA, MSM, MSTM, EMBA, and MS EPM programs with a focus on student enrollment and retention rates, enhanced student academic profiles, improved student engagement and participation, and graduate outcomes. His mission is to provide innovative and results-oriented leadership that supports the academic excellence, student success, and institutional growth of the Stevens School of Business.
Michelle Crilly
Assistant Dean of Student Success
Michelle Crilly is the assistant dean of student success for the Stevens School of Business and has more than 14 years of experience in higher education. She holds a master's degree in management from Stevens and a bachelor's degree in criminology from Simon Fraser University in Canada.
Michelle oversees the Center for Student Success and all academic advising for the School of Business. Contributing to student success is the main focus of her mission to enhance the Stevens student experience. Under her leadership, the School of Business is attaining record numbers for first-year student retention and sixth-year graduation rates.
Jeffrey Hedrick
Assistant Dean and Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives
Dr. Hedrick manages the operations and logistics for the Stevens School of Business, including budget and planning, human resources, legal and contracts, space utilization and capital projects, information technology systems and databases, and risk and compliance matters. Dr. Hedrick also drives the execution of the SSB Strategic Action Plan and is responsible for AACSB accreditation processes.
His role also includes working with academic administration to facilitate academic appointments for faculty and research scholars and the management of the tenure clock processes. He oversees the academic operations for both undergraduate and graduate studies focusing on the determination of faculty teaching loads, scheduling and communication of class assignments, and the creation of operational policies.
Before joining Stevens, Dr. Hedrick was a Vice President for the Research Foundation for the State University of New York, leading business development initiatives to attract and relocate domestic and international corporations to communities with limited economic opportunities. He spent 24 years at IBM Research where he managed multidisciplinary teams to solve complex customer challenges in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, novel memory technologies, photonics, clean energy and quantum computing. He managed multiple technical organizations and led IBM’s semiconductor partnerships across North America, Europe and Asia.
Dr. Hedrick holds a Ph.D. in Materials Engineering and Science from Virginia Tech and was an IBM Master Inventor with 67 U.S. Patents granted.
AACSB Accreditation
The School of Business is accredited by AACSB International, considered the gold standard among business schools. AACSB International is the world's largest business education alliance; less than 5 percent of business schools worldwide are accredited by this prestigious organization.
