The 2020 Don Shohfi Memorial Outstanding Doctoral Paper Award was recently presented to Joonhyuk Bok, a doctoral student in the Lally School of Management at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

The award is offered annually to the best doctoral student paper presented at the Lally Research Symposium. It is given in honor of Don Shohfi, the father of Thomas Shohfi, an assistant professor of finance and accounting in Lally. The elder Shohfi developed Citigroup’s first electronic payroll system and was an avid investor.

Bok was recognized for his recent paper, “The Role of Family Engagement in Influencing Patient Satisfaction.” The study finds that the quality of the partnership between a patient’s family members and health professionals is an important factor in fostering positive experiences and outcomes in a hospital setting.

“Our findings provide insights for health care managers and administrators aiming to improve the performance of hospitals on the increasingly important dimension of patient satisfaction,” Bok said.

In preparing the paper, Bok worked extensively with his adviser, Chris McDermott, a Lally professor whose interests focus on the link between the operations function and the overall strategic goals of an organization — particularly in the health care sector.

The presentation was delayed and held virtually this year due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.