The Department of Technology Management is pleased to announce that its graduating Ph.D. students, Sienna Helena Parker and Roni Shen, have accepted faculty and post-doctoral positions, respectively, following the completion of their degrees at UCSB. Additionally, we are proud to announce current Ph.D. student Mostafa Khoshbash as a 2025 recipient of the Strategy Research Foundation (SRF) Will Mitchell Dissertation Research Grant.
After earning her Bachelor of Science in Aquatic Biology in 2011 from UC Santa Barbara, Ph.D. student Roni Shen has spent close to a decade working in industries ranging from fisheries to veterinary medicine in various technical and managerial roles. Motivated by a lifelong fascination with work, her research culminates in her dissertation which looks at how AI-enabled technologies are transforming dairy farming. Specifically, she explores how data and algorithmic predictions reshape not only the knowledge and work of the farmers, but also how these emerging technologies are reshaping the physical environments around them and the cows themselves. Roni has accepted a post-doctoral position at ETH Zurich in the Department of Management, Technology and Economics.
Sienna Helena Parker will be joining the Cambridge Judge Business School as an Assistant Professor in the Organizational Theory and Information Systems subject group. Sienna earned her Bachelor of Science in Learning and Organizational Change from Northwestern's School of Education and Social Policy in 2018. After graduation, she spent three years in Silicon Valley, working at LinkedIn and a housing technology start-up. Her dissertation is titled “Retiring From, Working Through: Emergence of Retirement–Work Orientations and Organizing Later-Life Careers in the Gig Economy.” In her dissertation, she explores the changing nature of later-life careers in the growing platform workforce through three essays examining how older workers who have retired from formal organizational jobs navigate reputation, precarity, and identity as online freelancers.
Furthermore, we are pleased to highlight Ph.D. student Mostafa Khoshbash for being selected as a 2025 recipient of the Strategy Research Foundation (SRF) Will Mitchell Dissertation Research Grant, a competitive program administered by the Strategic Management Society to advance scholarship in strategic management. This grant supports up to $10,000 in dissertation research expenses, such as data collection, required for completion of the doctoral degree. His dissertation research is anchored in the concept of “Open-Source AI Ecosystem Building: Foundational Models, Openness, and the Nature of Innovation.”
Designed to produce exceptional scholars in technology-related work, technological change, and innovation, UCSB’s Ph.D. of Technology Management program seeks students who are expected to go on to research and teach at top universities across the country and the world. Unique to the program is student access to - and ability to collaborate with - world-renowned faculty in the interdisciplinary fields of organization theory, technology, and innovation management. The research conducted by Roni, Sienna, and Mostafa is exemplary of the program, and the Department of Technology Management is proud to congratulate them on their achievements and the next steps in their academic journeys.