CHAMPAIGN, Ill. Two University of Illinois doctoral students will become the first recipients of new dissertation awards bestowed by the UI Survey Research Laboratory in memory of two longtime faculty members.
The Robert Ferber and Seymour Sudman Dissertation Awards will be given annually to UI doctoral candidates who achieve excellence in survey research as part of a dissertation. This year, recipients will each receive $2,400. An awards ceremony will be Wednesday (Feb. 27) at the Survey Research Laboratory office, 505 E. Green St., Suite 3, Champaign.
Fabio Fonti, a Ph.D. student in business administration, will receive the Robert Ferber Dissertation Award for his thesis on understanding organizational performance. Fontis dissertation is titled "When One Relationship Is Not Enough: Toward A Theory of Multiplex Embeddedness." He is originally from Riccione, Italy.
Junyong Kim, a Ph.D. student in business administration, will receive the Seymour Sudman Dissertation Award for his thesis exploring mechanisms that influenced consumers post-purchase satisfaction. Kims dissertation is titled "Counterfactual Thinking: An Underlying Mechanism of Post-Purchase Evaluation and Satisfaction." He is originally from Seoul, South Korea.
Ferber, a professor of marketing and a research professor of economics and of business administration at the UI from 1948 to 1981, was the founding director of the Survey Research Laboratory in 1964. Sudman joined the UI faculty in 1968 as a professor of business administration and of sociology and as research professor and deputy director of the Survey Research Laboratory. In 1985, he was named the Walter H. Stellner Distinguished Professor of Marketing in the department of business administration.