Roberta S. Russell is a Professor of Business Information Technology in the Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and Director of the Center for Services Science, Quality and Innovation (www.pamplin.vt.edu/ssqi). She received a Ph.D. from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, an M.B.A. from Old Dominion University, and a B.S. degree from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Dr. Russell's primary research and teaching interests are in the areas of production and operations management, service operations management, scheduling, and quality. She has published in Decision Sciences, IIE Transactions, International Journal of Production Research, Material Flow, Business Horizons, Annals of Operations Research, Computers and Operations Research, and others. She is also co-author of the Prentice Hall book. Service Management and Operations.