Pauline J. Sheldon

Pauline J. Sheldon, PhD is Professor Emerita at the University of Hawaii’s School of Travel Industry Management where she also served as Interim Dean for four years. Her research covers sustainable tourism, social entrepreneurship in tourism, wellness tourism, corporate social responsibility, and knowledge management in tourism. She holds a PhD in Economics, a Masters in Business Administration, and a Bachelors degree in Mathematics. She has published over seventy journal articles and seven books, and most recently is co-author of the book “Social Entrepreneurship and Tourism: Philosophy and Practice” published by Springer. Together with Daniel Fesenmaier she is co-editor of a Springer book series entitled “Tourism on the Verge” which publishes volumes on the cutting edge of tourism.

She has been a Visiting Professor at many universities worldwide including University of Ljubljana, Slovenia where she taught in the European Masters in Tourism Management (EMTM) program. She has also taught in the International Masters in Tourism and Environmental Economics (MTEE) program at the University of Balearic Islands in Mallorca, Spain, in the tourism program at Hue University in Vietnam, in sustainable tourism destinations at Modul University, Austria, and corporate social responsibility at Bond University in Australia where she won the Dean’s Excellence in Teaching Award for her course.

Dr. Sheldon also co-founded TRINET (Tourism Research Information Network) which is an international tourism researchers’ electronic bulletin board with over 3,000 subscribers worldwide. She has worked extensively at the international level with organizations such as the United Nations World Tourism Organization, APEC International Center for Sustainable Tourism, and the World Bank, and at the local level as a Board member of the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau, and as a member of the Strategic Planning Committee of the Hawaii Tourism Authority. She is also a teacher for the Art of Living Foundation.