Brief Bio

As Associate Professor in the Higher Education & Student Affairs Program at The Ohio State University since 1992 (now Emerita), Ada Demb has supervised twenty-three doctoral students to completion, advised approximately one hundred sixty master’s students and taught courses about strategy and leadership, academic affairs, internationalization, and technology. She earned her Ed.D. from Harvard University, and her B.A. in Economics from Brandeis University.

Her research interests combine human behavior with technology, strategy and decision-making, agriculture and the social sciences, and include:  Strategies for internationalizing colleges and universities; cross-cultural understanding; technology and the changing shape of the academic industry; faculty careers; international corporate governance.

She joined The Ohio State University as Vice Provost for International Affairs (1992-1994), after having been Professor of Organization and Corporate Governance, at the International Institute for Management Development (Switzerland, 1986-1994).  Prior to that she was Assistant Director for Research at the College of Tropical Agriculture & Human Resources, University of Hawaii (1981-1986), and earlier, Research Scholar, at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (Vienna, Austria, 1975-1977).

She has published four books: Daring the Doctorate:  The Journey at Mid-Career (Rowman-Littlefield, 2012); The Corporate Board: Confronting the Paradoxes (with F.-F. Neubauer, Oxford University Press, 1992, with translations in Chinese, Danish, Polish, Slovenian and Ukranian); Computer Systems for Human Systems (Pergamon Press, 1979); and Organization for Programme Management (with C. Davies and R. Espejo, John Wiley & Sons, 1979). Professor Demb’s articles appear in major journals including: Journal of Higher Education, Journal of College Student Development, EDUCAUSE Review, Computers & Education,NACADA Journal; JAI Annual Advances in International Comparative Management; Annual Review of Strategy; Journal of Long-Range Planning; Corporate Governance; Directors & Boards; European Management Journal; and Education and Urban Society.