Gordon Ford College of Business Staff

Dr. Gihan S. Edirisinghe is an Assistant Professor of Operations Management at Western Kentucky University. His research applies operations management, management science, and data-driven methods to practical problems in retailing, e-commerce, and supply chains. His work increasingly crosses disciplinary boundaries, drawing on optimization, data mining, and related analytical methods to study topics such as inventory management, retail shelf-space allocation, and interactive pricing. A second stream of his research focuses on operations and management education, particularly experiential learning, educational technology, and the use of generative AI in business education.

 

His research has appeared in journals including Expert Systems with Applications, Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, The International Journal of Management Education, INFORMS Transactions on Education, Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education, and Operations Research Forum. His work has also received international classroom adoption and media coverage in the United States and abroad.

 

In the classroom, Gihan teaches Decision Modeling, Operations Management, and Supply Chain Management at the undergraduate and graduate levels. His teaching emphasizes rigorous quantitative learning combined with experiential activities, applied projects, technology, and scalable systems of student support. This work has been recognized through WKU’s Provost’s Award for Excellence in Online Teaching and Course Design, the GFCB Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching, Faculty Fellow Award for Teaching Innovations, and Early Career Teaching Innovation Award.

 

His service increasingly centers on student development, industry engagement, and institutional governance. He co-created WKU's Supply Chain Mentorship Program and previously served as faculty advisor to Delta Sigma Pi, earning the Southern Province Chapter Advisor of the Year Award. Gihan's professional service includes journal peer review across operations management, retailing, and management education, as well as service on the Scientific Committee of the European Decision Sciences Institute Annual Conference.