Professor of Marketing Ruby Roy Dholakia, one of our most distinguished faculty members, has exceeded 5,000 Google Scholar citations—a first for the URI College of Business.

Ruby started her academic career in 1970 at the Indian Institute of Management, in Calcutta, India and she joined the University of Rhode Island in 1981. Ruby earned her B.S. and M.B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, and Ph.D. in Marketing from Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University.

Known for her petite frame and her dynamic charisma, Ruby has dedicated her professional life to scholastic leadership, commanding attention because of her scholarly contributions, international influence, tenacity, and perseverance.

Widely published in peer-reviewed academic journals and trade publications, Ruby has presented her research at numerous conferences nationally and internationally. She is the editor or co-editor of several books that examine the relationships between marketing, development, and technology with a keen attention to social marketing, macro-marketing, retailing, technology and consumer behavior, and online shopping. Her most recent book is Technology and Consumption: Understanding Consumer Choices and Behaviors, published in 2012 by Springer.

Ruby has been a visiting professor all over the world from India to Finland to Norway to Japan. Ruby shares her influence and knowledge with all those who cross her path. She has taught undergraduate, graduate, and Ph.D. students for most of her career, leaving a lasting influence on their lives and careers in an order of magnitude that is almost impossible to quantify. Ruby is deeply respected by her students and has recently been honored with the 2016 University of Rhode Island Advanced Career Faculty Research and Scholarship Award in the Social Sciences, Arts, and Humanities, on top of multiple other teaching excellence awards.

In 1984, she pioneered Research Institute for Telecommunications and Information Marketing (RITIM) that brought industry participants and research scholars to the College of Business. Students and faculty worked on projects supported by companies that include AT&T, Verizon, Bellcore, Telecom Italia, Motorola, Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission, and Unisys. The COTIM conferences brought visibility to the College and influenced Ruby to concentrate her research on new technologies. All the PhD students who worked under her supervision wrote their dissertations on technology-related marketing topics.

Ruby is committed to serving the University of Rhode Island and the marketing discipline community. Recently, she co-chaired the URI Branding Committee, which unveiled the “Think Big. We Do.” tagline. She also chaired the URI Committee on Reshaping Health Education, Research & Outreach that led to changes of the organization of health-related disciplines at URI. She served as the first President of the International Society of Market and Development. She was a coordinator for the 2009 Honors Colloquium on “Demystifying India” and initiated the Gandhi Essay Contest on Non-violence for Rhode Island 8th graders, administered by URI’s Center for Peace & Non-Violence. Today, she leads an internal taskforce to inform the College of Business Advisory Committee on Branding.

People love Ruby for her ever-present wisdom, unique style, and her adventurist spirit. She loves to travel and has said that she would go to the moon if it were possible.