Regents Professor of Decision Sciences

Department of ITDS
Phone: 940-565-3957
Office: Chestnut Hall, Suite 103. Toulouse Graduate School
Email: prybutok@unt.edu

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Biography

Dr. Victor R. Prybutok is Vice Provost for Graduate Education and Dean of the Toulouse Graduate School at the University of North Texas (UNT) and a Regents Professor of Decision Sciences in the Information Technology and Decision Sciences Department in UNT’s G. Brint Ryan College of Business. Prior to becoming the Vice Provost, he served as Associate Dean of the Toulouse Graduate School from summer 2010 to fall 2014 and was Director of the Center for Quality and Productivity in the college of business from 1991 to the summer of 2008. He also served as the Interim Dean of UNT’s College of Information UNT from February 2016 to August 2016 and from fall 2014 to summer 2016 as the Associate Dean for Graduate Programs and Research in the college of business. He was awarded UNT’s Toulouse Scholar Award for the 2007-2008 academic year.

Dr. Prybutok received, from Drexel University, his B.S. with High Honors in 1974, a M.S. in Biomathematics in 1976, a M.S. in Environmental Health in 1980, and a Ph.D. in Environmental Analysis and Applied Statistics in 1984. Prior to joining UNT's faculty in 1991, he was Director of the Drexel University Center for Quality and Productivity, Assistant Professor of Quantitative Methods, and on the faculty of the Drexel University Environmental Studies Institute. He was also a Senior Biostatistician at the Campbell Soup Co. Institute for Research and Technology. He is a senior member of the American Society for Quality (ASQ) and active in the American Statistical Association, Decision Sciences Institute, Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, and Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences.

Dr. Prybutok is an ASQ certified quality engineer, certified quality auditor, certified manager of quality/organizational excellence, and served as a Texas Quality Award Examiner in 1993. He is also an accredited professional statistician (PSTAT®) by the American Statistical Association. He received the 2017 American Society for Quality Gryna Award for co-authoring the paper, ‘SNSQUAL: A Social Networking Site Quality Model,’ published in Quality Management Journal. In addition, his educational contributions resulted in his receiving the Federation of Business Disciplines Outstanding Educator Award, SouthWest Decision Sciences Institute 2015 Outstanding Educator Award and the 2018 Decision Sciences Institute Lifetime Distinguished Educator Award. He was also awarded the 2020 Distinguished Service Award by the Southwest Region of the Decision Sciences Institute. In May of 2023, Dr. Prybutok started his service as president elect of the Decision Sciences Institute and will serve as president starting May of 2024 and past president in 2025.

Dr. Prybutok has authored more than 250 journal articles and 350 conference presentations/proceedings, and several book chapters in applied and theoretical areas of information systems measurement, quality control, risk assessment, applied statistics, and the instruction of statistics. He has more than 17,000 citations and an H factor of 62 in Google Scholar.

Without the benefit of higher education, Dr. Prybutok’s significant accomplishments would not have been possible for a first-generation college student whose family was impoverished due to his father’s extended illness and death when Prybutok was 10 years old. As a result of the opportunity that was afforded him by higher education, Dr. Prybutok has dedicated his academic career to providing the same opportunities to other underprivileged students. Consistent with his dedication to providing graduate educational opportunity to others he has chaired over 60 doctoral dissertations, served on dozens of other committees, served as President of the Association of Texas Graduate Schools (Fall 2018–2019), and Past President of ATGS (2019-20). He constantly strives to serve as a creative administrator that works to engage faculty in solving problems and creating opportunities for all students.