Great achievements and impact recognised in RSM Awards 2025

For business schools, excellence is most often recognised from outside – with awards, grants and citations for research – but there is still opportunity for recognising excellence within. This year, academics, colleagues and students at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM) have nominated people who have excelled at the way they do their jobs – and the way they make others feel. The RSM Awards are an annual celebration of outstanding performance by people working on programmes, in research and in support services at RSM; they ask for nominations from colleagues and students. This year’s five awards are testament to exceptional work done by researchers, teachers and professional services staff, and were presented during the festive December Town Hall staff meeting. Winners come from a range of departments and work in diverse roles at RSM.

The winners of RSM Awards 2025 are:

Funding Award: Prof. Aurelie Lemmens
Mariëtte Kaandorp Prize for Excellence in Thesis Mentoring: Dr Anna Nikulina
Innovative Teaching Award: Dr Dimitrios Tsekouras
Professional Services: Madelon Fontein- Buisman
Positive Change Award: Dr Jochem Krouzen

RSM Funding Award

Prof. Aurelie Lemmens, Professor of Customer Analytics in the Department of Marketing Management won the RSM Funding Award for RSM researchers who invest in time-consuming, complex and competitive funding applications that result in a substantial grant. The Award takes into consideration the grant’s prestige, size, exceptionality, and its potential for making a positive impact on business, people, the environment or the school – as well as the diversity of the network involved in the research project.

In 2024, Prof. Lemmens heard she had been awarded a NWO Vici grant of € 1,342,352 for her project titled ‘Debiasing Algorithms: A Fair Machine Learning Approach Protecting Against Discriminatory Outcomes’ that tackles the crucial societal challenge of AI bias. She uses an emerging field of research called Causal Machine Learning that can learn the causal effect of an intervention and how it varies within a population that might have a lot of moderating variables. The jury for the RSM Funding Award said her research on Al is of extreme relevance and will provide answers to urgent societal needs, and her work on ethical Al use is one of the five impact domains of the university’s strategy.

Mariëtte Kaandorp Prize for Excellence in Thesis Mentoring

The Mariëtte Kaandorp Prize for Excellence in Thesis Mentoring was established by the Kaandorp family in 2021 to honour the memory of Mariëtte, an assistant professor in the department of Organisation and Personnel Management, who died in 2020 at age 35. It was won by Dr Anna Nikulina, lecturer in purchasing and supply management, based in the Department of Technology and Operations Management, with nominations from her master’s students working on their master theses. She supports students and empowers them to accomplish more than they think they are capable of doing, say her nominators. “An exceptional coach, she truly cares about the quality of the thesis and provides very detailed feedback and questions to keep you thinking and improving along the way,” they said. The students appreciated her support and her willingness to schedule meetings or adapt to students’ ways of working to provide constant support throughout the thesis process. “Her constructive suggestions and insightful comments allowed me to explore more possibilities to enrich my thesis,” said one.

Innovative Teaching Award

The Innovative Teaching Award shows appreciation for RSM educators who employ exceptionally innovative content or teaching methods in class. The winner is Dr Dimitrios Tsekouras, Associate Professor of Transformative Education in the Department of Technology and Operations Management. His course, ‘Digital Business’, was the reason for his nomination. He implemented an AI-adaptive learning approach that uses scalable Generative AI to adapt lecture videos to students’ individual learning styles. This method enables personalised learning experiences for over 1,200 students, but actually adds very little workload for the instructors using it. It’s a highly transferable approach, because any instructor can use it to adapt their lecture materials to a variety of learner profiles, and deliver it through RSM’s learning management system.

RSM Outstanding Professional Service Award

Madelon Fontein- Buisman is Secretary in RSM’s Corporate Marketing and Communications (CMC) team. She won the RSM Outstanding Professional Service Award, which is for outstanding support to colleagues, students and prospective students, or alumni. Her nominators referred to her indispensable role in the team. “She is the almost invisible force that keeps it running, that organises its meetings and keeps its supplies stocked up,” they said, commenting that she is an excellent example of someone running the extra mile, always friendly and patient and thinking beyond the task at hand. And ‘always caring and professional in all she does!’. Madelon has been a stalwart supporter of the CMC team for almost 20 years. No wonder that the nominators said: ‘she has been the glue to our CMC team – always ready to help, knowing who to contact, having lots of knowledge over processes and connections which impact our work’.

RSM Positive Change Award

Dr Jochem Krouzen, Associate Professor in the Department of People and Organisations, won the RSM Positive Change Award, which is for an RSM faculty member, staff member or student who brings something new that helps the school fulfil its mission to be a force for positive change in the world. He teaches the course ‘The Craft of Managing for Positive Change’ to MBA students – and has designed it in a way that that considers the needs and aspirations of students seeking a meaningful, high-quality education. “His creativity shines in the innovative structure and content of the programme, which prepares students to address complex global challenges,” said his nominators. His collaborative approach engages colleagues, students, and external partners so that the learning experience becomes co-creative.

More information

Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM) is one of Europe’s top-ranked business schools. RSM provides ground-breaking research and education furthering excellence in all aspects of management and is based in the international port city of Rotterdam – a vital nexus of business, logistics and trade. RSM’s primary focus is on developing business leaders with international careers who can become a force for positive change by carrying their innovative mindset into a sustainable future. Our first-class range of bachelor, master, MBA, PhD and executive programmes encourage them to become critical, creative, caring and collaborative thinkers and doers. www.rsm.nl

For more information about RSM or this release, please contact Pavlina Novakova, RSM corporate communications and PR manager, or Danielle Baan, science communications lead and PR, by email at press@rsm.nl.