In Memory of the late Prof. Sigal Barsade
The lab draws inspiration from and cherishes a colleague and researcher - the late Prof. Sigal Barsade. Born in Haifa, she grew up and worked in the USA, and was a faculty member at the prestigious Wharton School of Business and a leading researcher in the field of emotions in the workplace. Sigal’s career ended prematurely at the age of 56, due to an illness. Her influence on the field is tremendous. There is no doubt that her love for research and her work was contagious. The laboratory intends to organize a seminar in her memory once a year, and aspires to offer a scholarship to a young researcher.
On January 4th, 2023, at the Israel Organizational Behavioral Conference (IOBC) a session was held in memory of Prof. Barsade.
Here are the opening remarks given by Arik Cheshin:
"Thank you all for joining us in this special session, for a special person that is dear to us all and has had an impact on our field that has caused ripples that will be long lasting and will continue to move us, a person that has impacted our community’s culture not only by her seminal, groundbreaking, and inspirational work but also with herself as a person.
Today you will hear from colleagues from around the globe that Professor Barsade has impacted, and touched. We have gathered here to celebrate her as we would have wished to have her in person with us, in another wonderful IOBC conference. Chat with her over coffee, get her advice about our work, hear her present and her students present fascinating work and
just spend time together.
Professor Sigal Barsade, was born in Haifa, Israel in 1965. A Professor of Management at the prestigious Wharton school of business, Sigal was a serial attendee of the IOBC – the Israeli Organizational Behavior Conference. Which she avidly attended and presented her work. I am honored to have worked with Liat Eldor on this session.
We are honored to have with us in this session not only colleagues and friends but also family members who have joined. We, Liat and I, thought about the session our idea was to celebrate Sigal and her work. I know she would have liked to not only continue research in the field of emotion but also to practice her findings. So as you know emotions are contagious – keep that in mind – when you interact with your colleagues, students family members, and that a culture that has values of companionate love - a culture that is compassionate, tender, caring, and supportive has real world outcomes and implications, besides the very important emotional ones. I hope we can continue cultivate this type of culture in our work groups in this community of emotion researchers, and also OB in general and IOBC in particular foster such a culture in our community."