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Biography

Dr. Ravi Bapna, Dean of Santa Clara Universitys Leavey School of Business
Ravi Bapna
Dean

An internationally recognized scholar in artificial intelligence, business analytics, and digital transformation, Ravi Bapna brings three decades of academic leadership to his role as Dean of the Leavey School of Business and Mario L Belotti Professor of Business.

Prior to joining Leavey, Bapna was at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management, where he held the Curtis L. Carlson Chair in Business Analytics and Information Systems and served as Associate Dean of Executive Education, guiding a full financial turnaround of that unit. He co-founded Carlson's top-ranked Master of Science in Business Analytics and Artificial Intelligence program and led the Carlson Analytics Lab, which generated $2.8 million in consulting revenue through client-facing student projects across 54 companies. He also founded the Analytics for Good Institute, directing data science toward social impact work in housing justice and food security, funded by the McKnight, 3M, and Target Foundations.

A prolific researcher, Bapna has published extensively in journals such as Management Science, Information Systems Research, and MIS Quarterly, and has served as Senior Editor of Information Systems Research and MIS Quarterly. His honors include the Association for Information Systems Fellow Award, the INFORMS Information Systems Society's Distinguished Fellow and Inaugural Practical Impacts Awards, and the 2025 MNTech TEKNE Award for Technology Advocate of the Year. He is co-author, with Anindya Ghose, of the MIT Press book Thrive: Maximizing Well-Being in the Age of AI, winner of a 2025 Axiom Gold Medal.

Bapna holds a Ph.D. in Information Systems from the University of Connecticut, a bachelor's in computer engineering from the Manipal Institute of Technology, and a bachelor's in commerce from St. Xavier's College, Calcutta. He previously held faculty and leadership roles at the Indian School of Business and the University of Connecticut.

Bapna joins Santa Clara alongside his wife, Sofia Bapna, an award-winning scholar of technology and gender equity who also joins the Leavey faculty. An avid tennis player, he enjoys cooking, the outdoors, and spending time with family.

  • Phone
    408-554-4523
  • Location
    Bingham Dean's Suite (Lucas Hall 124)