University of New Mexico Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs James Holloway has named Alina Chircu the next dean of the Anderson School of Management, effective April 8, 2024.
“The Anderson School of Management is critical to our UNM 2040 Goal of Advance New Mexico. Supporting our state's business environment through training the business and management professionals needed to drive our economy and creating the research and business process development that will enable New Mexico to realize our huge opportunities is key to our impact as a university,” said Holloway. “I am so excited to bring a professional of Alina Chircu’s expertise and talents to our state to lead our amazing Anderson School of Management. The faculty and staff in the school rock it, and Dr. Chircu is just the leader we need to take the school to the next level.”
Chircu is excited about her new role at UNM and looks forward to working with a diverse group of faculty, staff, students and the business community in New Mexico, regionally and nationally.
“I am honored to join the Anderson School of Management at UNM and the Lobo community. The Anderson School of Management is essential to the University’s commitment to support and grow a diverse student body, enhance academic excellence, expand connections with industry, government and community partners and support a vibrant economy,” said Chircu. “This resonates deeply with the teacher-scholar model that characterizes my career. I have personally experienced and have a deep appreciation for the transformational value of public education and its power to break socio-economic barriers. It will be an honor and privilege to give back by serving in an institution that offers a quality, affordable education and has the power to unleash the potential of so many talented students.
“The Anderson School of Management and its exceptional faculty, staff and students have a long history of working collaboratively with alumni and the larger business community in New Mexico. I look forward to continuing and amplifying these efforts and helping Anderson play a lead role in education, entrepreneurship, and economic development not only in New Mexico but also regionally and nationally.”
Chircu currently serves as a professor in the Computer Information Systems (CIS) department at Bentley University, a noted business university in Waltham, Mass. She has served in several capacities at the institution, including interim dean of Business (2022) during a period of leadership transition. She has managed all aspects of the business school with over 150 full-time faculty members in nine academic departments. She also served on the President’s Cabinet and participated in several cabinet-level decisions and strategy sessions.
Before that appointment, Chircu was the associate dean of Business for Graduate Programs (2019-2020), managing an extensive graduate programs portfolio serving over 1,000 graduate students and working collaboratively with numerous stakeholders across departments and divisions. She implemented graduate school strategic plans and developed and updated plans with senior university leaders. Chircu was also instrumental in stabilizing an enrollment decline and increasing revenue by 12 percent by creating new programs and improving existing programs and processes. Before taking the interim dean position, she was promoted to senior associate dean of Business for Graduate Programs (2020-2022). Before serving as associate dean, she was chair of the Information and Process Management department (2011-2019).
Chircu has served at the president’s invitation on the university’s Resource Stewardship, Revenue Growth and Diversification strategic priority committee and co-chaired a strategic opportunity sub-committee. She has also sat as chair of the Analytics curriculum task force and as a member of the university-level Promotion and Tenure committee (elected), accreditation writing teams (NECHE, AACSB), curriculum improvement and review committees, and university leadership search committees.
Chircu’s teaching and research interests include business process and value chain management, design thinking, digital transformation, and the business value, design, adoption, and implementation of transformational technologies such as e-business, e-government, mobile, RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence, quantum computing, digital twins, and the metaverse. Chircu has been a chair, moderator, and presenter in academic and practitioner panels and workshops.
Additionally, she has been an associate editor for various journals and conferences, as membership vice chair for the AIS Special Interest Group for ICT in Global Development and as organizer and chair of the 2015 Bentley Research Colloquium on Sustainable Worlds: Individual, Business, Societal, and Scientific Perspectives. Chircu is currently a senior editor for the Electronic Commerce Research and Applications (ECRA) journal and serves on the editorial boards of several other academic journals.
Chircu has published numerous articles in prestigious journals such as the Business Process Management Journal, Communications of the AIS, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Decision Support Systems, Journal of Management Information Systems, Communications of the ACM, Journal of Information Systems Education, and others, in the proceedings of IEEE, AIS, IACIS, and other conferences, and books published by Wiley, Springer, Buterworth-Heinemann, and others. She has been recognized throughout her career with many honors and awards, notably several Best Paper Awards at international conferences.
Chircu holds a Ph.D. in Business Administration (focusing on Management Information Systems) from the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, and bachelor's and master's degrees in Computer Science and Systems Modeling and Simulation from the University “Politehnica” of Bucharest (Romania).