Notre Dame marketing professor wins early career research award

Vamsi Kanuri, Viola D. Hank Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, is the winner of the 2024 Varadarajan Award for Early Career Contributions to Marketing Strategy Research. The award, presented annually by the American Marketing Association Marketing Strategy Special Interest Group, honored Kanuri for his contribution to the field. A committee of three renowned scholars selected Kanuri for the Varadarajan Award based on the criteria of the overall impact on marketing strategy research and practice, research quality, research quantity and research leadership. The award recognizes the contributions of a marketing faculty member who has completed 10 or fewer years after receipt of her or his doctoral degree. 

Kanuri’s work focuses on evaluating the performance and consumer welfare implications of digital marketing issues. For example, one recent study examined how color complexity affects user engagement on social media. Another analyzed the best time of day to post on social media. In more recent studies, Kanuri and his co-authors studied the effect of adding B2B online channels and changing online shipping policies. He has been published in Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, MIS Quarterly, Strategic Management Journal and other top journals. Among his awards, Kanuri was recognized as one of the Top 50 Worldwide in Productivity in the Premier AMA Marketing Journals by the American Marketing Association in 2024, the Robert J. Lavidge Global Marketing Research Award from the American Marketing Association Foundation in 2020 and as a finalist for the MSI/H. Paul Root Award in 2019 and Paul E. Green Award in 2018. Kanuri, who earned his Ph.D. in marketing from the University of Missouri, currently serves as an associate editor for the Journal of Marketing and Journal of Interactive Marketing, as well as an area editor for the Journal of Academy of Marketing Science. He also serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Marketing Research, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of Retailing and Production and Operations Management Journal. He teaches Managing Digital Engagement in Mendoza’s undergraduate and masters programs and Applied Consumer Science in the Notre Dame Executive MBA program. Kanuri previously received the James Dincolo Outstanding Undergraduate Marketing Professor and Poets and Quants' 40 under 40 Best MBA Professor awards in recognition of his teaching. The Varadarajan Award was created to honor the achievements of Rajan Varadarajan, University Distinguished Professor and Distinguished Professor of Marketing at Mays Business School at Texas A&M University. The award recipient is selected by a committee of leading research scholars in marketing strategy and recognized during the AMA Summer Academic Conference in partnership with the Marketing Strategy SIG. Frank Germann, Viola D. Hank Associate Professor of Marketing and chair of Mendoza’s Marketing Department, previously received the Varadarajan Award in 2021.