First Calling

TEACHING WAS NOT professor Naveen Gudigantala’s first career, but it was his first calling. He started in banking in Hyderabad, in Southern India, where he grew up. “Banking was a good career, but not for me,” he says. So he came to the US to pursue a master’s in science and information systems at Texas Tech University. While there, he was assigned a teaching assistantship, an experience that changed everything for him. “I fell in love with teaching,” he says, and he decided to pursue his PhD. “No day of teaching ever felt like working at a bank.” 

Here at UP, Gudigantala is an operations and technology management professor in the School of Business, and he enjoys teaching in a field that is ever-changing and preparing students for new challenges. He teaches with an emphasis on community-building and partnerships with nonprofits. In a collaboration with Child Vision, for example, he and his students use data and analytics to provide low-cost eyewear to schoolchildren in remote parts of India. He also works with Women in Big Data, an organization that prepares students to enter into careers that analyze and utilize data and partner with industry mentors.

This year his student-centered teaching practice was recognized by his peers. He received UP’s 2025 Outstanding Teaching Award, a testament to his commitment to the Holy Cross model of “cultivating the mind and heart.” “My ultimate mission is to make a lasting positive impact in my students’ lives, not just in school or their careers. That’s what motivates me: How can I prepare them to become a force of good in the world?”

When Gudigantala is not teaching on The Bluff, he’s spending time with his family, doing yoga, or…teaching. He teaches Hinduism at a local Sunday school, and as a father of two young daughters, he goes home and teaches them, off the clock. “Those are the gifts that God gave me, and I try to make good use of them,” he explains. “I strongly believe in the transformative power of education in the formation of young minds.”

GIGI GIANGIOBBE is Portland magazine's editorial intern.