Ipsos announces winners of inaugural CARD-Ipsos Dissertation Proposal Award

New York, March 27, 2023 – Ipsos, one of the largest market research and polling companies globally, is pleased to announce the winners of the inaugural CARD-Ipsos Dissertation Proposal Award, a new competition recognizing innovation and excellence in postgraduate scholarship. 

In a ceremony and presentation on March 22, Tara Srirangarajan of Stanford University was awarded the first-place prize for her proposal, “Disentangling the Affective Impact of Stimulus Proximity and Motion Using Immersive VR: Implications for Decision Neuroscience.” Matt Meister of the University of Colorado was selected as the runner-up for his work on “Two Inherent Issues with User-Generated Star Ratings”.

According to Rich Timpone, the Acting Managing Director of the Global Science Organization at Ipsos, this initiative aimed “to promote and recognize quality science and the next generation of up-and-coming scholars. While the winners were selected purely on merit, they are pushing science and understanding forward in areas where Ipsos is working to advance value for our clients.”

“From decision-making in the metaverse and the potential of VR, to how expectations and context identify challenges in the alignment between user generated ratings and how other consumers use them, the academic insights that will be generated by these scholars have practical implications for the future of marketing,” Timpone said.

The competition, hosted by the Center for Applied Research in Decision Making (CARD) at Temple University’s Fox School of Business and the Fox School’s Department of Marketing in partnership with Ipsos, invited doctoral students from around the world to submit multi-methodological dissertation proposals for consideration. Submissions spanned a range of disciplines, including marketing, psychology, economics and neuroscience.

Three judges — Fox School Marketing Professor Crystal Reeck, Fox School Accounting Professor Sudipta Basu, and Ipsos’ Manuel Garcia-Garcia — evaluated these proposals on the soundness of methodology, the interdisciplinary nature of the research, and the potential value of the findings for society at large. The committee ultimately selected Tara Srirangarajan’s proposal, which made use of state-of-the-art virtual reality techniques to investigate decision-making behavior across different environments.

“We hope the competition forces young PhD students to think beyond academic publications about the translational impact of their research on business and society,” said the Fox School’s Vinod Venkatraman, associate professor of marketing and director of CARD.

The CARD-Ipsos Dissertation Proposal Award is the latest in a broad and ongoing partnership between Ipsos and CARD, which has yielded impactful studies such as those on what physiological reactions reveal about how people experience advertisements and how face masks impact attention, emotion and memory.

These collaborations have advanced both CARD’s mission to support interdisciplinary, evidence-based decision-making research, and Ipsos’ vision of leveraging academic insights to solve real-world problems.

About Ipsos

Ipsos is one of the largest market research and polling companies globally, operating in 90 markets and employing over 18,000 people.

Our passionately curious research professionals, analysts and scientists have built unique multi-specialist capabilities that provide true understanding and powerful insights into the actions, opinions and motivations of citizens, consumers, patients, customers or employees. Our 75 business solutions are based on primary data from our surveys, social media monitoring, and qualitative or observational techniques. “Game Changers” – our tagline – summarizes our ambition to help our 5,000 clients navigate with confidence our rapidly changing world.

Founded in France in 1975, Ipsos has been listed on the Euronext Paris since July 1, 1999. The company is part of the SBF 120 and the Mid-60 indexes and is eligible for the Deferred Settlement Service (SRD).

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