Viswanath Venkatesh, who received his PhD from the University of Minnesota, is an Eminent Scholar and Verizon Chair at Virgina Tech Pamplin College of Business. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential scholars in business and economics, both in terms of premier journal publications and citations, with over 114,000 times (Google Scholar) and about 36,000 times (Web of Science). His research focuses on understanding the diffusion of technologies in organizations and society. The sponsorship of his research has been about US$10M. His work has appeared in leading journals in human-computer interaction, information systems, organizational behavior, psychology, marketing, medical informatics, and operations management, and included best paper awards.