By Maritza Baeza
Special from UTPB
Dr. Pinyarat Sirisomboonsuk, or “Mink,” as she prefers, is an Assistant Professor of Management at UTPB and now, she also holds the title of published author.
In the College of Business, Mink teaches courses in project and operations management, risk management in supply chains, and business statistics. She received her undergraduate degree from Chulalongkorn University in Thailand, a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) from Oregon State University, and a Ph.D. in Operations Management from Texas Tech University.
Dr. Mink teamed up with co-authors, Drs. Erik Larson and Clifford Gray, to bring together the textbook, titled ‘Project Management: A Socio-Technical Approach.’
“Dr. Larson was the person who encouraged me to get a PhD as he said I seem to like an academic world, ‘why don’t you go get a PhD and come join me?’ This was over 15 years ago. For better or worse, I am here with a PhD and was one of the co-authors of this textbook.”
The book was published by the highly coveted academic publishing company, McGraw-Hill and was released on January 16th of this year.
“The evaluation copies have been sent out for current adopters of the textbook. Other support course materials such as test bank questions, PowerPoint slides, and the solutions manual, should be fully available to instructors later this summer—just in time for fall semester adoption.”
Written for a wide audience, the textbook provides a comprehensive understanding of all aspects of project management through its universally applicable concepts, principles, and techniques. Additionally, not only does it emphasize the importance of the human dimension in project management through a holistic view, but it also recognizes the mastery of managing people through these techniques within the culture of their organization.
This opportunity first began when Mink was an MBA student at Oregon State University.
“I had taken a project management course from Dr. Erik Larson. I did not realize that he was also a co-author of the textbook until I flipped through the author’s bios page. I was impressed and excited to learn that he was both my lecturer and the coauthor of the text for the course. Long story short, I had the privilege to work as Dr. Larson’s TA (teaching assistant) and helped him with the preparation of the textbook, 4th edition, at the time. As for Dr. Gray, he had already been an emeritus professor but was still involved with the textbook for a few more editions. I had a chance to work with both of them and continued to work with the textbook since then.”
The project took a few years to complete.
“I was invited to be the third co-author of this textbook around late summer 2022. I had most of my work done during summer 2023.”
Dr. Mink says that she feels grateful for the opportunity and experience.
“Other than the learning process I personally acquired while working on this textbook project, I feel accomplished that I was able to put not only my name but my University name (UTPB) on the textbook that is selling worldwide.”
