When Rohit Aggarwal began his academic career, he was asking a question that most people in business hadn’t thought to ask: what does technology really do to the humans who use it? Not just how it changes workflows or improves efficiency — but how it shapes the way people learn, make decisions, and exercise judgment.
Two decades and dozens of published studies later, that question has become even more urgent. And Aggarwal — now joining the UCR School of Business as Professor of Information Systems — has built a research career around understanding how people and organizations can work more effectively with intelligent technologies.
From Chemical Engineering to the Cutting Edge of AI Research
Aggarwal’s path to Information Systems began with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Panjab University in Chandigarh, India, followed by an MBA in marketing from the Management Development Institute in Gurgaon. It was during his doctoral studies at the University of Connecticut — where he earned his Ph.D. in Information Systems — that he found his calling. Prior to joining UCR Business, he was a professor of Information Systems at the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business, held a visiting professorship at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business and, most recently, a Distinguished Fellowship at Purdue University’s Mitch Daniels School of Business. He currently serves as Senior Editor at Production and Operations Management.
Research for a World of Human-AI Collaboration
Aggarwal’s research has appeared in leading journals including Management Science, Information Systems Research, MIS Quarterly, and Production and Operations Management. Dr. Aggarwal's research focuses on two interconnected questions at the heart of the AI era: what does genuine human judgment look like when working alongside AI, and how do we build AI systems that are actually reliable? His first line of research identifies the specific skills that distinguish truly effective human-AI collaboration with direct implications for how companies will hire and develop talent. His second examines how organizations structure the knowledge inside AI systems to make them adaptable and dependable over time. Together, his work is a practical roadmap for the future of work — one that every business student and leader needs to understand.
Taking AI from Research to Practice
Aggarwal is also the founder and developer of MentorStudents.org, a mentoring platform for students and early-career professionals. Often described as “TED Talks for mentoring,” it captures candid career journeys so mentees can see relatable paths to success.
Beyond academia, he has advised startups, small and medium-sized enterprises, and publicly listed companies, including Care.com, on practical AI adoption. His work has included developing AI enablements for workflow transformation, including establishing best practices for AI-powered coding agents, building workflow automations across functional units, and developing conversational and voice-agent systems for complex, multi-step tasks. Across his research, mentoring, and consulting, the theme is consistent: AI creates the most value when human judgment, organizational knowledge, and technical systems are designed to work together.