Owl Have You Know

Season 3, Episode 24

In another episode from our 2023 Alumni Reunion series, host Maya Pomroy ’22 and Phoebe Wang ’13 chat about her passion for fighting climate change for future generations, her work with Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, and winning a C3E business award.

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Introducing Chike Osunkwo, hybrid MBA Class of 2025, whose decision to enroll in the MBA program was an easy one because he always knew that he belonged at Rice University. Chike is located in Katy, TX and works as a design and product engineer at Celeros Flow Technology, an Industrial Engineering firm that designs, installs & sells various products from pumps to valves. “As a working professional, it is not easy to balance work and family with full-time school. So, having an academic program that is structured around my busy schedule made the Rice Hybrid MBA an easy choice,” he says. Keep reading to learn more about Chike's path to Rice Business. 

Why did you select Rice Business and why did you choose the Hybrid MBA program?

I always knew I belonged at Rice University, but it was only a matter of time. Rice embodies quality and prestige, so it was easy to make that decision. Rice Business is ranked amongst top universities nationally and has a very strong network. I believe the Rice MBA will give me an unlimited breadth of exposure to a world of possibilities in my professional development as a leader.

As a working professional, it is not easy to balance work and family with full-time school. So, having an academic program that is structured around my busy schedule made the Rice Hybrid MBA an easy choice. Lastly, being amongst the pioneers of an elite class of students in the Hybrid MBA program makes it an even cooler experience. I’m now part of the school’s history.

Can you describe your preparation process for business school?

Part of my preparation process for business school was to speak with friends and alumni within my immediate network about their experiences and the opportunities the program offers. I also followed day-to-day progress updates with Rice Business online.

What do you most look forward to as an MBA student?

The networking opportunities.

Can you describe your professional goals after Rice Business?

I see myself developing as a world-class leader taking on opportunities to drive solutions for impactful changes. 

What advice would you give to someone applying to the Hybrid MBA program?

For anyone with an extremely busy schedule but would want an intimate in-person learning experience that works well for your schedule, then the Hybrid program could be best tailored for you.

Want to know more about the Hybrid MBA student experience? Attend one of our admissions events!

Renewable Energy Alliance Houston (REAL Houston) and Rice Business Executive Education hosted the second annual Renewable Energy Leadership Conference Aug. 22 on Rice’s campus to explore the impacts of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) one year after it was signed into law.

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The discussion provided an opportunity for voices from leading renewable energy companies, the U.S. Department of Energy and capital providers to discuss the impact the IRA has had on Houston and beyond, and what to expect going forward.

REAL Houston Board Chair Kay McCall said the act was a significant change for U.S. energy policy.

“The impressive array of historic investments made in renewable technology, carbon capture and storage, hydrogen and more demonstrate the concrete steps we are taking toward a lower-carbon future,” said McCall. “What we heard from the diverse voices gathered here today — all but one from Houston — bodes well for the coming decades in energy and for Houston’s role in transforming the industry.”

John Berger, CEO of Sunnova Energy, said the IRA’s expansion of federal tax incentives has resulted in a surge of investments in the renewable and clean energy section.

“A year into its enactment, this transformative legislation continues to yield dividends, equipping both residential and commercial customers — including those in historically underserved communities — with a more affordable and more reliable source of energy,” Berger said.

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The growth opportunity created by the IRA has allowed clean energy projects to accelerate at a faster pace, said EDP Renewables North America CEO Sandhya Ganapathy.

“The IRA’s incentives and subsidies are also helping to lower electricity costs for consumers and make already affordable renewable energy even more economical,” Ganapathy said. “This legislation has created a fantastic opportunity for our industry and for consumers who want clean energy at affordable prices.”

As a premier business school, Rice Business is proud to unite diverse stakeholders with the common purpose of revolutionizing renewable energy, said Michael Koenig, associate dean for innovation initiatives and executive director of executive education.

“With unwavering commitment, we steer toward a greener future, knowing businesses redefine energy’s landscape,” Koenig said. To learn more about Rice Business Executive Education, click here.

Based on research by Süleyman Kerimov (Rice Business), Itai Ashlagi (Stanford), Itai Gurvich (Northwestern)

Key findings:

• Researchers developed a mathematical model that helps clarify when it's best to match patients to donors as quickly as possible and when it's best to wait.
• Their findings could help optimize all manner of matching markets in which participants seek to connect with potential partners based on mutual compatibility.
• The researchers surmise that the wisest course of action would be to alternate between periodic (periodic matches that accumulate over time) and greedy policies (matching donors as soon as they become available) as circumstances dictate.

To wait, or not to wait? That is the question — or at least it might be, if you need a kidney transplant. 

Nearly 89,000 Americans with chronic kidney disease are on a waitlist for a new organ, and an estimated 13 people die each day while awaiting a transplant. But there are real costs to matching patients with the first donor that becomes available, just as there are equally real costs to having them wait in hopes of finding a better one.

Recently, Rice Business professor Süleyman Kerimov and colleagues at Stanford University and Northwestern University developed a mathematical model that helps clarify when it's best to match patients to donors as quickly as possible and when it's best to wait.

Their findings, which appear in two papers published in Management Science and Operations Research, respectively, could help optimize all manner of matching markets in which participants seek to connect with potential partners based on mutual compatibility — a sprawling category that encompasses everything from e-commerce platforms to labor markets that match employees with employers.

Kerimov and his colleagues focused on programs that match live kidney donors with people who need transplants. Live donors typically volunteer to give one of their kidneys to a loved one. But biological differences between a donor and their intended recipient can render the pair incompatible.

Kidney exchange programs solve this problem by swapping donors amongst different patient-donor pairs, choreographing a kind of kidney-transplant square dance aimed at finding a compatible partner for every willing donor.

In countries such as Canada and the Netherlands, kidney-matching programs perform a batch of matches every few months (called periodic policies). American programs, meanwhile, tend to perform daily matches (called greedy policies).

Both models seek to produce the greatest number of high-quality transplants possible, but they each have advantages and disadvantages.

Less frequent matches in a periodic policy allow more patient-donor pairs to accumulate in the kidney exchange network, creating potential for better matches over time. But this approach risks making some patients sicker as they wait for a better match that might never appear.

Arranging feasible matches as soon as they become available in a greedy policy avoids that predicament. But it means passing up the opportunity to make a potentially better match that could represent the possibility of a longer, healthier life.

Balancing these trade-offs is tricky. There is no way of predicting precisely when a patient-donor pair with a particular set of characteristics will show up at the kidney-exchange network. And in the world of organ transplants, there are no do-overs.

Kerimov and his colleagues have constructed a mathematical model that represents a simplified version of a kidney exchange network.

Within the model, the researchers could dictate which patient-donor pairs could be matched with one another. They can also assign different values to individual matches based on the number of life years they provide. And they can establish the probability that various kinds of patient-donor pairs with particular characteristics might arrive at the network and queue up for a transplant at any given time.

Having set those parameters, the researchers applied different matching policies and compared the results. As it turns out, the answer to whether one should wait or not is: It depends.

To determine which policies generated the best outcomes — i.e., performing matches either daily or periodically — the researchers calculated the difference between the total value in life years that could possibly be generated within the network and the amount generated by a specific policy at a particular point in time. The goal was to keep that number, evocatively dubbed "all-time regret," as small as possible over both the short and long term.

In their first paper, Kerimov and his team explored a complex network in which donor kidneys could be swapped amongst three or more patient-donor pairs. When such multiway matches were possible, the cost of applying a daily-match policy turned out to be onerous. Using all available matches as quickly as possible eliminated the chance of later performing potentially higher-value matches.

Instead, the researchers found they could minimize regret by applying a periodic policy that required waiting for a certain number of patient-donor pairs to arrive before attempting to match them. The model even allowed the team to calculate precisely how long to wait between matchmaking sessions to get the best possible results.

In their second paper, however, the team looked at a simpler network in which kidneys could only be swapped between two donor-patient pairs. Here, their findings contradicted the first: Applying a daily-match policy minimized regret; a periodic matching process yielded no benefit whatsoever.

To their surprise, the researchers discovered they could design a foolproof algorithm for making two-way matches in simple networks. The algorithm employed a ranked list of possible match types; and the researchers found that no matter how many patient-donor pairs of various kinds randomly arrived at the network, the best choice was always simply to perform the highest-ranked match on the list.

In future research, Kerimov hopes to refine the model by feeding it data on real patient-donor pairs that have participated in actual kidney exchange programs. This would allow him to create a more realistic network, more accurately calculate the likelihood that particular kinds of patient-donor pairs will show up, and assign values to matches based not only on life years but also on rarity and difficulty. (Certain blood types and antibody profiles, for example, are rarer or more difficult to match than others.)

But Kerimov already suspects that in a real-world situation, the wisest course of action will be to alternate between periodic and greedy policies as circumstances dictate.

In a simple region within a kidney exchange network that only allows for two-way matches, pursuing a greedy policy that involves taking the first match that appears on a fixed menu of options would be the best choice. In a more complex region that allows three-way matches, however, pursuing a periodic matching policy that involves waiting to make rarer and more difficult matches would ultimately offer more patients more years of healthy life.
 
The benefits of choosing flexibly between greedy and periodic policies should hold for any kind of matching market that can be represented by a network with simpler and more complex regions, such as a logistics system that matches online orders to delivery trucks or a carpooling system that matches passengers with drivers across different parts of a city.

Kerimov, et al. (2024). “Dynamic Matching: Characterizing and Achieving Constant Regret,” Management Science. 

Kerimov, et al. (2025). “On the Optimality of Greedy Policies in Dynamic Matching,” Operations Research. 

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Michelle “Mikki” Hebl , the Martha and Henry Malcolm Lovett Professor of Psychological Sciences and professor in the Jones Graduate School of Business, is the 2023 recipient of the Advancing Women in Leadership Award from the Academy of Management (AOM).

Presented by the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) division of the AOM, Hebl received the honor at the organization’s annual meeting earlier this month. The accolade recognizes a deserving individual for significant contributions to educational practices that support the advancement of women in leadership.

When reflecting on the award, Hebl said she owes a lot to her own undergraduate experience at Smith College.

“It made me very aware of the gender inequities that have existed and continue to predominantly affect women in our world,” she said. “I have been blessed to be able to watch so many Rice women and people from underrepresented backgrounds break down barriers that have long held them back from reaching their full potential.”

Elena Doldor, chair of the award committee, said competition for the award was stiff with many impressive nominations, but Hebl stood out for a number of reasons. She has authored 200 publications exploring workplace and other subtle forms of discrimination and how to address it, is the recipient of 21 teaching awards throughout her career, and is a champion for diversity both at Rice and in her profession.

But Doldor said the most touching aspect of Hebl’s nomination was her “deliberate, relentless and generous mentorship provided to graduate and undergraduate female students throughout her career.”

“So many personal experiences shared with us in glowing award nomination letters tell the story of someone who doesn’t just talk the talk, but truly walks the walk of promoting diversity and inclusion,” Doldor said.

Hebl said it is a joy to help her students even in some small way.

“I love my students and I believe in them,” she said. “I also know we will eventually see the pendulum swing forward the right way and women will gain the professional and personal rights that they so deserve. They will be CEOs en masse, they will have paid leave, they will have the right to choose and they will not have to ‘juggle the struggle.’ I am hopeful that I get to see that day, and until then, my work is unfinished.”

Hebl has been at Rice since 1998. More information on her scholarship and lab is available at https://www.mikkihebl.com . More information on the award and past recipients is online at https://dei.aom.org/dei/awards/advwomenlshippastwinners .

You’ve made the decision to go to business school. Congratulations. What a huge first step. Next, you work on essays, recommendations, test scores, transcripts and resume. Then what? Hit submit.

Why now? Here are our top five reasons to apply early to an MBA program:

1. Show your interest.

Submitting your application early signals to the school you’re truly interested in them. Enthusiasm and commitment to a program demonstrate the kind of student we’re looking for: someone eager to learn and be part of our community.

2. Secure Your Spot.

Like all programs, the Rice MBA has a limited number of spots available. Applying early gives you an edge on acceptance because your cohort won’t be full yet. As the year progresses and accepted students enroll, the number of seats decreases and the competition increases.

3. Time to finance.

Merit-based scholarships are awarded to full-time students as they apply to Rice Business. When you apply early, you become part of the consideration set. And you’ll also have time to work with our financial aid office on financing your degree. Maximize your chances.

4. Visit campus.

Applying early gives you time to integrate in the school community and culture earlier. Once you’re enrolled, you get to participate in events at the school and career workshops. And as an added bonus, you’ll have time make connections with your classmates, get to know the campus better, and expand your professional network before you start classes in the summer.

5. Plan ahead.

An earlier acceptance gives you time to evaluate options and plan for seamless onboarding. If you're moving to Houston, explore neighborhoods near campus and enjoy the arts, sports, and restaurants.

MBA Application Tips: Applying early provides flexibility and peace of mind. Reduce the stress. Apply early to secure your spot at Rice Business, request more information, or reach out to our team for guidance on the application process, financing, and transitioning to student life. Get ready to change your life with one of our MBA programs.

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