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Rutgers School of Business – Camden

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Dr. Schiro Withanachchi

Associate Dean of Undergraduate Programs & Professor of Professional Practice

Strategy, International Business & Entrepreneurship

Office: BSB 252

Phone: (856) 225-6804

Email: schiro.withanachchi@rutgers.edu

D.B.A., Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College, CUNY

View CV PDF

Dr. Schiro Withanachchi is the newly appointed Associate Dean of Undergraduate Programs and Professor of Professional Practice of Strategy, International Business, & Entrepreneurship at Rutgers School of Business–Camden. After an early career in aerospace engineering at Lockheed-Martin Aircraft Corporation, she transitioned into academia. Most recently, she served as the Associate Dean and faculty at the School of Business at Queens College, City University of New York (CUNY) where she lectured for over 15 years.

Dr. Withanachchi draws on her experience of living in different continents to globalize curricula, develop innovative pedagogy, and bridge the application-knowledge gap. She is the author of articles that study the impact of global dexterity on upper echelon and internationalization on student career success. Her research has been featured in various conference proceedings, including those of the Academy of International Business, Centre for Business & Economic Research (CBER), the 2019 ICCAGE Conference on Intercultural Communicative Competence, the International Association for Business and Society, etc. Her work has been cited in academic books, such as Institutional, Economic, and Social Impacts of Globalization and Liberalization, Managing and Using Information Systems: A Strategic Approach, and Annals of Cases on Information Technology (ACIT).

Additionally, she has been invited as a panelist at the NAFSA Colloquium on Global Learning, at the Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning, and Leadership (CETLL) presentation on Faculty Service, on CUNY TV EdCast Educators on Education, at CUNY’s Professional Development workshop on Internal Mobility at Work, at the Stevens Initiative Webinar Series on Learning Today to Lead Tomorrow, at the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) webinar on Virtual Exchange, and as a keynote speaker at Thomas Edison EnergySmart Charter School Commencement in New Jersey. Dr. Withanachchi has also presented transnationally on her interdisciplinary initiative, Global Scholars Achieving Career Success (GSACS), and inspirational leadership with Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL).

She is the recipient of the Diversity Enhancement Research Grant by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (2016), the President’s Faculty Diversity and Inclusion Award for Excellence in Teaching (2021), and most recently, a Fulbright Specialist Award (2024-2027) for collaboration with the University of the West Indies, Mona in Jamaica to integrate curricula with United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Education
D.B.A. in Management/ International Business, Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College, CUNY, 2022
M.B.A. in Decision Sciences, St. John’s University, 2001
B.S. in Aerospace Engineering, minor in Mathematics, 1995

Academic Positions
Associate Dean – School of Business, Queens College, CUNY
Director – Business and Liberal Arts (BALA) honors program, Queens College, CUNY
Lecturer (Tenured) and Coordinator of COIL – Department of Economics, Queens College, CUNY

Research Interests
Internationalization
Innovation
Upper Echelon Theory

Recent Awards & Honors
2024 – 2027      Fulbright Specialist
2021– 2023       Stevens Initiative: Global Scholars Achieving Career Success
2021                    President’s Faculty Award for Diversity and Inclusion/Excellence in Teaching

Representative Publications and Presentations

  • Withanachchi, S. “Learning Today to Lead Tomorrow: Building Virtual Exchanges that Propel Career Readiness,” Invited panelist at Stevens Initiative Webinar Series, Virtual, 12 June 2024.
  • Aksakalova, O., Pai, G. H., & Withanachchi, S. (2023, Winter). Global Scholars Achieving Career Success (GSACS) Winter 2023 Institute. virtual: Stevens Initiative administered by Aspen Institute and funded by US State Department.
  • Withanachchi, S., Darmon D. and Sreesing, P. “Building Students’ 21st Century Skills through Virtual Exchange,” Centre for Business & Economic Research (CBER), Proceedings, 2022.
  • Duranczyk, I., Pai, G. and Withanachchi, S. “Globalizing Curriculums with Data: COIL Energizes the Learning Environment,” Invited panelist at AMATYC Webinar Series, Virtual, 24 March, 2021.
  • Withanachchi, S. “The Economic Impact of Globalization and Internationalization on Minority Immigrant Graduates.” In Yilmaz Bayar Editor, Institutional, Economic, and Social Impacts of Globalization and Liberalization, IGI Global, Pennsylvania, November 2020.
  • Aksakalova, O., Ramson, A. and Withanachchi, S. “Conceptualizing COIL at a Public City University: Achieving Equity, Developing a “Third Space” Pedagogical Paradigm, and Strengthening Career Readiness,” International Virtual Exchange Conference (IVEC), virtual, September 14-16, 2020.
  • Withanachchi, S. “Dexterity vs. Diversity: Influence of Upper Echelon’s Cultural Competence, Ethnicity and Innovation on Financial Performance,” Academy of International Business (Journal of International Business Studies) 2020 Conference, virtual, July 2-6, 2020.

Courses Taught
Statistics as Applied to Economics and Business (in-person and with COIL)
Strategic Management (in-person)
Microeconomics (in-person and fully online)
Corporate Finance (in-person)
Economics Internship (experiential learning)

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