Department: Marketing
Graduated: PhD 1998
Present Position: Assistant Professor of Marketing, The Fuqua School of Business, Duke University
Current Focus: Dr. Amaldoss' area of expertise is in experimental game theory and competitive strategy. His teaching and research interests are in marketing management and pricing strategy.

Wharton Teaching
"As a teacher's assistant I helped the faculty with a wide variety of assignments. This prepared me in many ways. I got an opportunity to teach with professor Barbara Kahn, who is an exceptionally good teacher with an imitable teaching style. I tried to copy her as much as I could, and it worked well. She comes to class very well prepared and everything is clearly structured. Demands were clearly stated and outlined. But the most valuable thing I learned was how she held the students to a higher standard. I taught at Purdue for a few years before coming to Duke, and I was rated the best instructor two years in a row. I attribute my ranking in large part to what I learned from her."

Wharton Philosophy
"The questions that the faculty posed, the questions that they tried to answer in their own research, were so insightful. On some level, posing those interesting questions is what it means to be at Wharton."

"People do their work in an incredibly rigorous manner. The teachers perform in the classroom, but what I noted at Wharton across the board was how the professors excel on the research front. I saw a strong commitment to academic research. We, the students, lose track of the bigger picture in the details of life, but the faculty makes you see the longer view how important it is to do good quality research."

"I did my undergraduate work and MBA in India and worked at an advertising firm for seven years before coming to Wharton. I discovered that there is an ocean of difference between marketing as it is practiced and marketing research. I believe that Wharton's Marketing Department is particularly strong. It's one of the very best in the world. An advantage for any incoming PhD student is the breadth in the variety of research that the professors do. As PhD students we came in thinking that we knew what we wanted to study and of course this completely changed as we evolved over time. We are exposed to these brilliant men and women and it effects us."

The Students
"Wharton attracts people with good prior academic credentials and I it's a big asset to have such a set of students as peers. We carry them with us even when we leave. Even though they don't do the kind of work I do, I still send my work around to them for their insightful comments. It's a network that is nice to have."

Wharton Research
"The breadth of research at Wharton helps immensely, because students have other options if their preferences change. I began by wanting to research one thing and ended up focusing on something else entirely. Wharton gives one the option of doing well even if one's preferences change. Most human beings think that they know who they are, but the truth is we change all the time. You are allowed you to evolve at Wharton, and when you do chances are you'll find people doing research in this area."

"On the research side Wharton has the best group on Planet Earth. These are brilliant human beings. What distinguishes the program is that we are given ample room to evolve our own research program. Nothing is imposed. My advisors, to their credit, really let me do what I wanted to do. They didn't tell me I had to do research in their focus area. They don't practice that there. The work I was trying to do was not mainstream — I was interested in experimental economics — and not a lot of research had been done in this area. They gave me unwavering support in pursuing my interests. It made all the difference. We each have to be what we are, and the faculty knows how to bring out the best in each student. After my work was published it got rated the best paper in Marketing Science and Managament Science. It was also rated best dissertation for that year by INFORMS. I owe that to my advisors."