Polly S Rizova

Polly Rizova serves as Associate Professor of Management at Willamette University’s Atkinson Graduate School of Management. Dr. Rizova came to Willamette from the Department of Sociology and The College of General Studies at Boston University. She has also been a Visiting Professor at Wellesley College and Tufts University in Massachusetts.

A native of Bulgaria, Dr. Rizova began her career as a Regional Manager and Data Analyst at the Central Statistical Office in Sofia. In the United States, she first worked at the Office of Institutional Research and Policy Analysis at the State University of New York in Albany. She then moved to Boston where she has been an internal consultant for the Gillette Company. Her work there involved several studies into the design of the business processes and organizational structure of the company’s Corporate Research and Development Division .

Dr. Rizova earned a Bachelor and Master of Arts in Economics from the Higher Institute of Economics in Bulgaria. She then received a Diploma through a United Nations Fellowship at the International Statistics Program Center in Washington, D.C. She also holds a Master of Arts from the State University of New York at Albany and earned her Ph.D. in Sociology of Formal Organizations from Boston University.

Personal Interests

Reading about world history, philosophy and cultures, traveling, learning foreign languages, listening to music and watching films and documentaries, never fail to make me feel a citizen of the world who is inextricably and meaningfully connected to the human race for whose variety I have a genuine appreciation and respect.