Robin Poston

Bio

Dr. Robin Poston is the Dean of the Moody Graduate School of Graduate and Advanced Studies and Associate Provost for Graduate Education at SMU, which is home to over 4,700 graduate students studying in over 100 programs. She is a member of the Cox Business School faculty in the Information Technology and Operations Management Department.  Prior to joining SMU, from 2014-2022 she served as the Chair of the Business Information and Technology Department then Dean of the Graduate School at the University of Memphis, where she received the Memphis Alumni Association Distinguished Teaching Award.  Dr. Poston is also the prior Director and currently a Research Fellow with the System Testing Excellence Program at the FedEx Institute of Technology at The University of Memphis. She routinely speaks about advances and innovations in software testing at events attended by hundreds of academic and industry professionals, including IEEE’s International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering and meetings supported by the International Test and Evaluation Association. 

She has served as an Associate Editor for two highly ranked journals, the European Journal of Information Systems and Decision Sciences Journal, both of which provide critical views on technology, development, implementation, strategy, management, and policy for information systems to a global audience. Dr. Poston’s current research focuses on understanding the alignment within the IT unit among developers and testers, client managers’ responsibilities, and agile development and testing. She has published articles in publications such as Management Information Systems Quarterly, Journal of Management Information Systems, Decision Sciences Journal, Communications of the ACM, IEEE Computer, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Information Systems Management, and in major international conference proceedings.

Dr. Poston has over 20 years of experience in the information systems field working for KPMG Consulting, Educational Computer Corporation, Meta Group Research, and Convergys, and consulting with several Fortune 500 companies and government agencies. Today, she works with organizations such as the Department of Homeland Security and Air Force Institute of Technology and has conducted projects and educational programs for the Defense Information Systems Agency of the Department of Defense, FedEx Corporation, First Tennessee Bank, St. Jude/ALSAC, and others. Dr. Poston received her bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from The University of Pennsylvania (1987), master’s degree in Accounting from The University of Central Florida (1992), and Ph.D. in Management Information Systems from Michigan State University (2003).

Research Interests

Alignment • IT Unit Collaboration • Developers and Testers • Client Management Responsibilities • Agile Development and Testing
 

Professional Affiliations & Leadership

Member, Advisory Committee on Advocacy and Public Policy, Council of Graduate Schools (CGS)
Member, Audit Committee, Conference of Southern Graduate Schools (CSGS)
Professional Awards Committee Chair, International Test and Evaluation Association (ITEA)
Member, Board of Directors, International Test and Evaluation Association (ITEA)