Professor Eliot Rich Establishes Scholarship for Graduate Students

Professor Eliot Rich is leaving his full-time faculty position at the end of the year, leaving behind a legacy anchored by a new endowed scholarship for graduate students, University at Albany reported.

The Dr. Eliot Rich Academic Achievement Award will support high-performing MBA students specializing in Information Systems and Business Analytics, as well as those enrolled in the Master of Business Analytics program. The gift serves as a cornerstone for the Massry School of Business’s $30 million Inspire the Next fundraising campaign.

“At our school, nobody comes with a blank check. They’re putting in their valuable time and a lot are mortgaging a bit of their future,” Rich said, noting that many talented students come from modest backgrounds similar to his own.

“The idea of trying to give something to encourage people to keep going … a whole generation of potential scholars and talent who could just use a little help … the idea of paying it forward means a great deal to me.”

Rich’s journey to the University at Albany began in East New York, where he grew up in a household consisting of a postman and a government clerk. He viewed education as a primary vehicle for social mobility, eventually graduating magna cum laude from Brooklyn College with a degree in economics and a minor in computer science before earning a master’s in public policy from Harvard.

Professor Eliot Rich Establishes Scholarship for Graduate Students

After a decade working in IT consulting during the rise of desktop computing in the early 1980s, Rich sought to understand the systemic failures of information technology. This inquiry drove him to enroll at the University at Albany in 1989 to pursue a PhD in information science.

Over a 30-year career, Rich moved from an adjunct instructor to a tenured associate professor and eventually the chair of the Department of Information Systems and Business Analytics. His research spanned critical modern infrastructures, including cybersecurity, crisis management, and sustainability.

While much of Rich’s work focused on the technical behavior of complex systems, he identifies the “Aha!” moment of teaching as his most significant professional reward. He describes the sensation of helping a student bridge the gap between a challenge and a solution as unparalleled.

“There’s nothing like an ‘Aha!’ moment. Whether you do it yourself and the clouds in the sky part, or you help someone get to that point and share it with them … when an intellectual challenge moves towards a solution and the student can then move forward with it, [there’s] nothing like it.”

Rich said.

The establishment of the scholarship also serves as a tribute to the academic community he helped build. Rich specifically cited the late Professor Lakshmi Mohan, a co-founder of the information sciences PhD program who passed away in 2024, as a model of the collegial spirit within the school.

“It was not about ‘me.’ It was always about ‘we,’” Rich said regarding the faculty’s collaborative approach to resource sharing and relationship building.

Rich’s career has spanned the evolution of the digital age, from the first business desktop revolutions to the current complexities of global information science.

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