Poonam Arora

Dr. Poonam Arora has extensive experience in developing faculty excellence, leading strategic initiatives, fostering interdisciplinary innovations in global business education, and spearheading sponsored research. Her operational leadership includes AACSB and MSCHE accreditation. Arora was appointed Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs for the School of Business in 2022. She joined Manhattan College in 2010, where she rose to become the Capalbo Professor of Business Administration, and Department Chair of Management and Marketing. Prior to joining academia, Arora worked as a consultant at McKinsey and Co., and an investment banker at Citi.

Arora’s research program explores how individuals, through their choices, can create economic, environmental, and social sustainability for communities, organizations, and society. Human decisions are multi-motive, interdependent, inter-generational, and context dependent. They frequently address dilemmas where rational actions may yield short term benefits but create long-term burdens. Arora uses game theoretic models, lab and online experiments, qualitative fieldwork, agent-based models, and conceptual frameworks to help decision-makers manage conflicting goals and ensure long-term integrated sustainability. Arora’s research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and published in management, psychology, economics, and sustainability journals.

Arora earned her BBA summa cum laude in Business Economics from John Cabot University in Rome, Italy, an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Columbia University, where she was an NSF Graduate Fellow. She continues to be affiliated with the Advanced Consortium for Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity at the Climate School, Columbia University.