Monideepa Tarafdar named Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of the Association for Information Systems

Dr. Monideepa Tarafdar has been appointed as the next Editor-in-Chief (EIC) of The Journal of the Association for Information Systems (JAIS) effective September 1, 2024.

Dr. Tarafdar is the Charles J. Dockendorff Endowed Professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Isenberg School of Management. Dr. Tarafdar earned her Ph.D. in Management Information Systems (MIS) from the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. She then held academic positions at the University of Toledo, advancing from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor to Professor of Information Systems. Subsequently, she became a Professor of Information Systems and Co-Director of the Research Center for Technological Futures at Lancaster University, UK. She has held appointments as a Visiting Scholar at the Sloan School of Management’s CISR, and as a Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Indian Institute of Management Calcutta.

Following her appointment, Dr. Tarafdar commented:

"The Journal of the Association for Information Systems is the flagship research journal of the Association for Information Systems, dedicated to publishing top-tier scholarship in the field of information systems. I view my role as that of a steward, committed to nurturing and advancing the highest quality research in our field. I look forward to working with colleagues on the Board, to champion innovative, relevant, and rigorously developed conceptual and empirical contributions to our discipline.”

Dr. Tarafdar will be succeeding Dr. Dorothy E. Leidner who has served as Editor-in-Chief for JAIS since 2018. During her terms as EIC, Dr. Leidner led efforts to streamline many operations of the journal from DOI submissions, pre-prints, copy editing and production. Dr. Leidner also oversaw updates in the journal’s logo, page template, website, manuscript review system and enablement of optional author-videos. Significant improvements were also made in the length of time between an article’s submission to final determination. During her tenure, the volume of annual published articles doubled, and journal readership grew as well. Average monthly downloads of the journal’s articles have tripled, and average monthly abstract views have nearly quadrupled during this time. These milestones were reached despite tighter access controls to the journal’s articles that were put into place.

The AIS community acknowledges the outstanding care, leadership and service of Dr. Leidner and thanks her most sincerely. We also thank all members of the JAIS EIC Search Committee that was chaired by the AIS VP Publications Dr. Chee-Wee Tan.

Doctors Tarafdar and Leidner will be working together to achieve a smooth transition in the editorship of JAIS.