Donna Dufner, PhD, MBA, MS, PMP is an Associate Professor (tenured) in the Department of Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis (ISQA) in the College of Information Science and Technology at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO). She received the UNO Alumni Outstanding Teaching Award in 2002 and the UNO Chancellor’s Excellence in Teaching Award in 2006 and in 2007 she was nominated for the University of Nebraska University-wide teaching award which is pending. In 2005 she was recognized by the Midwest Consortium for Service-Learning in Higher Education for efforts to integrate Service-Learning into the education of students at UNO. Before joining UNO in 2000, Dr. Dufner taught at the University of Illinois for three years where she was named a University Scholar in 1998, the highest honor awarded by the University of Illinois for excellence in teaching and research. She has been identified by students as the most inspirational teacher they have had during their education at the University of Nebraska.

Dr. Dufner earned a PhD in Management Computer and Information Science at Rutgers University where she was a Teaching Fellow and was inducted into the Beta Gamma Sigma Honor Society. She also earned an MS in Computer and Information Science from The New Jersey Institute of Technology; and an MBA from the University of Chicago. She is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP), the project management profession’s most recognized and respected global credential. In 2007 Dr. Dufner was elevated to Senior Member in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), for professional maturity and significant professional accomplishment. She is first woman in Omaha to be elevated to Senior Member. Less than 7.78% of 374,800 IEEE members worldwide have received this honor.

Before becoming an educator, Dr. Dufner spent over 15 years in the business world managing software engineering and telecommunications programs and projects with budgets ranging from several hundred thousand up to 20 million dollars. Experienced in both private and public sector project management, she has successfully managed projects for AT&T, Chemical Bank Corp., ARDIS (a joint venture of IBM and Motorola), Bell Atlantic Nynex, the City of Omaha and Douglas County, Nebraska.

Dr. Dufner has received recognition for her work as a project manager e.g., “It is important to emphasize the enormity and relative success of the Juvenile Accountability Incentive Block Grant MIS (JAIBIG MIS), development and implementation process. Large-scale MIS development involving multiple agencies and differing data formats has frequently resulted in failure if not outright catastrophe in terms of time, cost, and usefulness of the end product. Our overall evaluation of the JAIBG MIS development effort is that it has been quite successful, both in terms of providing a repository for data collection and sharing, and as a vehicle for promoting inter-agency coordination and cooperation.” Source: Martin, J. and Else J. “Juvenile Accountability Incentive Block Grant: Phase III Evaluation Report”.

Dr. Dufner has also received recognition for her Service-Learning Courses. Dr. Dufner has been interviewed by the Omaha World Herald, KETV, Radio Station KFAB (Husker Radio), and has made presentations to the Douglas County Board, as well as other agencies regarding Service-Learning. Her work has also been presented at local and national conferences.

Dr. Dufner’s professional and research interests include Project Management, Service-Learning, and Private and Public Sector Information Technology. Dr. Dufner's research has been published in a variety of scholarly journals including the Journal of Group Decision and Negotiation, the Journal of Organizational Computing, Communications of the Association of Information Systems (CAIS), and Public Productivity and Management Review (PPMR). Recently she was invited to the Republic of Korea to discuss applied project management. She served as an Associate Editor for CAIS and is a Senior Referee for IEEE having been given special mention as a referee whose "dedication, quality of work, and expertise" in reviewing articles submitted for publication exceeds the standards of IEEE.

Dr. Dufner was selected to participate in the 2004-2005 Leadership Omaha Program now in its 27th year. Leadership Omaha is one of the oldest and most respected community leadership programs in the nation. She is listed in Who's Who of American Women and Who's Who of Teachers and Educators.