DeSales University Honors Dr. Tahereh Alavi Hojjat with 2026 Provost's Faculty Excellence Award
DeSales University is proud to announce that Dr. Tahereh Alavi Hojjat, Professor and Chair of Economics in the Waterbury Reilly School of Business, is the recipient of the 2026 Provost's Faculty Excellence Award. This prestigious annual honor recognizes a faculty member who has demonstrated outstanding achievement in one of three pillars of academic life: teaching, scholarship, or service. This year, the award celebrates the exceptional scholarly contributions that define Dr. Hojjat's remarkable career.
"I am deeply honored to receive the 2026 Provost's Faculty Excellence Award for Scholarship/Professional Growth," said Dr. Hojjat. "As a scholar, I have always believed that learning and intellectual growth are lifelong journeys. I am grateful to DeSales University for encouraging faculty scholarship, global engagement, and interdisciplinary research."
Dr. Hojjat's academic journey spans continents and decades. She earned her bachelor's degree from the University of Tehran, her master's degree from American University in Washington, D.C., and her Ph.D. from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Over the course of 36 years at DeSales University, she has built a body of scholarly work that is broad in scope and impact.
Her research has addressed some of the most pressing issues at the intersection of economics, society, and public health. She is the author of The Economics of Obesity: Poverty, Income Inequality and Health, first published by Springer in 2017, with a second edition released in 2021, a book that has contributed meaningfully to the academic conversation surrounding health economics and social inequality. She also co-authored Islamic Economy and Social Mobility: Cultural and Religious Considerations, published by IGI Global in 2016, which examines the social, cultural, religious, and political dimensions of Islamic economies at the global level. She is currently completing a manuscript titled Immigration, Identity, and the Politics of Belonging, scheduled for publication in 2027.
Beyond her books, Dr. Hojjat has authored numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters in business, economics, and the social sciences. She authored Mini-Cases in Finance, an accompanying resource for Financial Institutions and Markets by Frederic S. Mishkin (7th edition, Pearson Prentice Hall). She has served on the advisory boards of Houghton Mifflin and McGraw Hill and currently serves as an Academic Advisory Board Member for the Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business (JAFEB). She also contributed as a reviewer for the 13th edition of Principles of Economics by Case, Fair, and Oster (Pearson, 2020).
Dr. Hojjat's scholarly excellence has earned her recognition well beyond DeSales. She is a past recipient of the Teaching Excellence Award from the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs and has received grants from the Center for Advancing Partnerships in Education (CAPE) for Global Collaborative Faculty Projects and from the Lehigh Valley Association of Independent Colleges (LVAIC) for the College Admission Mentoring Program (CAMP). She serves as an ex officio member of the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Economic Association and is an active member of the United States Association for Energy Economics (USAEE) and the Chapter on Energy Conservation of Lehigh Valley.
Provost Terese Wignot, Ph.D., expressed the deep respect the university community holds for Dr. Hojjat and the significance of this recognition.
"Dr. Hojjat is a true educator. She advances her field with her research and then shares that new knowledge with her students," said Wignot. "She is the ultimate example of a teacher and scholar."
DeSales University congratulates Dr. Tahereh Alavi Hojjat on this well-deserved recognition and celebrates the lasting mark her scholarship has, and continues to make, in her field, her students, and the world.