Prashanth Bharadwaj, an experienced faculty member and administrator at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, has been chosen for the position of dean of Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s Eberly College of Business.
Bharadwaj served as interim dean of the Eberly College of Business from January 2022 to June 2023 and again starting in June 2024. He will continue in the interim dean role until May16, when he begins the role of dean.
“Dr. Bharadwaj has been an outstanding faculty member, administrator, and interim dean for the Eberly College of Business, providing stability and moving the College forward while in the interim role,” Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Lara Luetkehans said.
“In his long career at IUP, he has been fully committed to student success, using his knowledge and experience to provide our students with educational experiences that enable them to make positive impacts around the world. His leadership has been critically important in the Eberly College’s accreditation from AACSB International, held by less than 10 percent of schools worldwide, and specialized AACSB accreditation in accounting, requiring assessment, scholarship, and strategic planning. He continues to play a leadership role in accreditation, leading the preparation for the accrediting team’s visit this month.
“Dr. Bharadwaj has also been instrumental in expanding the Eberly College of Business’s international partnerships and its global outreach, creating unique and important opportunities for students to study international business, and to work with students from countries all over the world,” she said.
“He has a well-earned reputation for his leadership skills, including through challenging times. IUP is very fortunate to have a professional like Dr. Bharadwaj as the Dean of the Eberly College of Business and as a senior member of IUP’s leadership team building IUP’s future,” she said.
“I am deeply honored and humbled by the confidence that the provost, the president, and university leadership at IUP have in me,” Bharadwaj said.
“Over the past three decades, I have been privileged to contribute to nearly every facet of the Eberly College, collaborating with exceptional faculty, staff, administrators, alumni, advisory council members, and international partners. I look forward to continuing my work with the same passion, dedication, and commitment that I have demonstrated during my entire tenure at IUP. The Eberly College of Business is distinguished by its many unique strengths and signature programs; I look forward to working with our stakeholders in further highlighting these accomplishments and advancing Eberly College’s vision of being recognized globally as a premier business school,” Bharadwaj said.
As interim dean, Bharadwaj worked collaboratively with faculty and staff to complete the Eberly College Strategic Plan, ensuring its alignment with university and presidential goals. He developed a comprehensive set of Eberly funding priorities, launched the reimagined WINGS mentoring program for Eberly College sophomores and juniors, and organized the annual mentoring bootcamp for students with leading New York City Eberly alumni.
He has managed two reorganizations of the Eberly College and has worked closely with the IUP Academy of Culinary Arts faculty as the program transitioned from clock hour to degree program. He hosted the Middle States Commission on Higher Education reaccreditation team at IUP’s partner site in India as part of the university’s successful reaccreditation process. He has actively supported faculty in curriculum development, including revision of the Eberly Core, expanding Eberly’s role in the Crimson Core and the MBA Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) program. He has played a major role in the development of Eberly’s doctoral program. In collaboration with IUP’s John J. and Char Kopchick College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, the Eberly College launched a new graduate program for the spring 2026 semester, a master of science degree in information systems and management.
Committed to international education and IUP’s strong global presence, Bharadwaj has served as director of offshore programs since 2004 and as director of the School of International Management since 2020. In this role, he has been responsible for conceptualizing, initiating and overseeing the IUP-India Partnership with PES University, the IUP-West Bank Partnership with Arab American University, the Global Academy in Business Leadership on IUP campus, the Discover Norway Program, the international MBA Symposium and annual meets in Sri Lanka, Mauritius, France, Germany, Netherlands, and Switzerland, the Collaborative Online and International Learning program with students from Norway and other countries; and the International Scholarship Program from Africa.
He has actively enhanced IUP’s global footprint by establishing new partnerships and nurturing existing ones at universities in countries all over the world: Bangladesh, China, France, Germany, India, Kenya, Malaysia, Nepal, Norway, West Bank, to name a few. IUP’s MBA program in Bangalore, India, in collaboration with PES University since 2005, has graduated more than 1,500 alumni who have been successful as executives and entrepreneurs in numerous business sectors all over the world. With the annual Discover India program, a faculty-led study-abroad that he designed, Bharadwaj has taken nearly 300 American IUP students to India in the last twenty years. Eberly’s MBA program routinely attracts students from many regions of the world, including Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Africa.
Bharadwaj served as the Eberly College’s dean’s associate from January 2008 to June 2024 and chairperson of IUP’s Department of Management from 1999 to 2008. His teaching experience spans across all levels in the areas of supply chain and operations management, quality management, quantitative methods, small business and entrepreneurship, strategic management, and organizational behavior.
He has been recognized with a number of awards for excellence, including IUP’s 2021 University Senate Distinguished Award for Teaching and the 2001 University Senate Distinguished Faculty Award for Research; he is the only IUP recipient of the University Senate awards for both research and teaching. He has served on many key university committees and task forces, including in leadership positions in groups responsible for academic review and restructuring.
He has been successful in securing grants and contracts worth several million dollars as co-principal investigator in areas such as self-employment assistance programs, entrepreneurship curriculum, developing learning organizations, enhancing e-commerce in rural areas, academic excellence in cybersecurity, and numerous offshore degree programs.
He was the assistant director of IUP’s Small Business Institute and consultant for the Small Business Development Center from 1995 to 2014, which included supervising teams of graduate and undergraduate students to support small businesses throughout the region. His work resulted in the student teams winning a National SBI Director’s Association Case of the Year Award and a Regional SBI Directors Association Case of the Year Award. He has also worked as an independent consultant for several small businesses mainly in the areas of lean and supply chain management.
He has authored over 25 peer-reviewed journal articles, and nearly 100 proceedings articles and editorials in national and international publications. He has mentored numerous graduate and undergraduate students for their first publications. He was the editor or associate editor of multiple scholarly journals. He has been an invited presenter at conferences in many regions of the world.
Bharadwaj holds a PhD and an MBA in Operations Management from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, an MS in Industrial Engineering from New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), and a B. Engg. In Industrial and Production Engineering from Bangalore University, India.
The Eberly College of Business includes the departments of Accounting and Information Systems, Finance and Economics, Hospitality and Employment Relations, Management, and Marketing. It is consistently recognized nationally for excellence, including in the Princeton Review’s Best Colleges guidebook, Best Value Schools, and Princeton Review’s annual Best Business Schools.
Since its founding in 1875, IUP has evolved from a teacher-training institution into a doctoral research university recognized for its commitment to student success and achievement. As IUP celebrates its 150th anniversary in 2025 and through the Impact 150 comprehensive campaign, the university honors a legacy of educational excellence while looking to its next 150 years of student success, innovation, leadership in healthcare education, and public service.