Welcome!

I study service operations in public sector organizations. I am particularly interested in incentives in K-12 education and healthcare, both systems in which service is coproduced, difficult to measure, and paid for by a third-party payer. My work in education is inspired by the educators and administrators I met while working at Springfield Public Schools in Massachusetts.

Here is my CV.

Publications

1. Bavafa, H., Örmeci, L., Savin, S., Virudachalam, V. (2021). Surgical Case-Mix and Discharge Decisions: Does Within-Hospital Coordination Matter? Operations Research, 70(2), 990-1007.
2. Too Much Information: When Does Additional Testing Benefit Schools?, Vanitha Virudachalam. Sergei Savin, and Matthew P. Steinberg. Forthcoming at Management Science

Working Papers

2. Going the Distance: The Impact of Commute on Gender Diversity in Public Service. Dawson Kaaua and Vanitha Virudachalam.
3. Coproduction in the Classroom: Optimally Allocating Incentives Between Teachers and Students. Nan Liu, Sergei Savin, Matthew P. Steinberg, and Vanitha Virudachalam

At UIUC, I regularly teach BADM 211 (Business Analytics II), an undergraduate course that introduces students to Python and data mining. You can find the syllabus from Spring 2020 here.

If you have previously taken my class and would like a letter of recommendation, please give me at least two weeks notice and make sure to send me your resume and an unofficial transcript. If you give me less than two weeks notice, I will likely take pity on you and write you a letter anyway.

Please note that class participation and attending office hours go a long way in allowing me to write you a strong letter of recommendation! (Coincidentally, they also help you get more out of my course.)

Email me at vanitha at illinois dot edu or call me at 217.300.8597. You can sometimes find me at BIF 4014 at UIUC.