# Grailer Faculty Fellow Program

**Publisher:** Cornell Center for Hospitality Research  
**Published:** n/a  
**Category:** Academia & observatories  
**Type:** Report  
**Access:** Free  
**Official source:** https://business.cornell.edu/centers/chr/research-publications/grailer-faculty-fellows  
**Canonical:** https://tourismintel.ai/reports/grailer-faculty-fellow-program-cornell-college-of-business

## At a glance
- Cornell Center for Hospitality Research funds tenure-track faculty at the Nolan School of Hotel Administration to conduct industry-relevant hospitality and travel research.
- Program operates as competitive annual grant scheme with consistent funding; 2025 and 2026 cohorts each awarded three fellowships.
- 2026 recipients include Associate Professor Aaron Adalja and Assistant Professors Lauri Kytömaa and Meng Qi.
- 2025 recipients were Assistant Professors Heeyon Kim, Tashlin Lakhani, and Ruihao Zhu.

## What the report covers
The Grailer Faculty Fellow Program is a funding initiative administered by Cornell's Center for Hospitality Research, part of the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business. It supports tenure-track faculty at the Cornell Peter and Stephanie Nolan School of Hotel Administration to conduct research addressing industry challenges in hospitality and travel. The program seeks to fund projects with demonstrable relevance to practitioners and the broader sector, positioning academic scholarship as a strategic resource for industry innovation and decision-making.

## Key findings
The Grailer Faculty Fellow Program targets tenure-track faculty exclusively at Cornell's Nolan School of Hotel Administration. The initiative aims to generate research with direct applicability to industry professionals and scholars. By focusing on this specific institutional cohort, the program concentrates resources on faculty embedded within a dedicated hospitality education environment, enabling disciplinary depth and industry network alignment within the academy.

The program operates as a competitive annual grant scheme with stable funding levels. The 2025 cohort selected three assistant professors; the 2026 cohort also selected three fellows spanning associate and assistant professor ranks. This consistency in annual award numbers and the inclusion of both early-career and mid-career scholars suggests institutional commitment to sustained research support across faculty career stages.

Research priorities align with contemporary hospitality and travel technology challenges. According to the program metadata, documented focus areas include hospitality operations, artificial intelligence applications, and travel planning innovation. This thematic scope reflects sector-wide transformation driven by digital disruption and evolving consumer behaviour, positioning the program's output as directly relevant to practitioner adaptation and strategic planning.

The program sits within a broader research infrastructure at Cornell's Center for Hospitality Research. The CHR manages multiple funding mechanisms, including The Stanley Sun Faculty Global Research Fund and exclusive research databases, alongside the Grailer fellowships. This ecosystem approach enables cumulative knowledge building and cross-project learning within hospitality research, though individual project details remain confidential in publicly available materials.

## Key numbers
| Metric | Value | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 Grailer Faculty Fellow recipients | 3 | Current grant cohort: Aaron Adalja (Associate Professor), Lauri Kytömaa (Assistant Professor), Meng Qi (Assistant Professor) |
| 2025 Grailer Faculty Fellow recipients | 3 | Prior grant cohort: Heeyon Kim (Assistant Professor), Tashlin Lakhani (Assistant Professor), Ruihao Zhu (Assistant Professor) |

## Why it matters
**DMOs & destinations** — Destination management organisations benefit from research addressing hospitality sector operational and strategic challenges. Studies funded through this program on travel planning innovation, guest experience design, and artificial intelligence applications inform destination positioning, marketing strategy, and stakeholder collaboration frameworks. Academic research provides independent evidence to support destination competitiveness and visitor management decisions.

**Hotels & hospitality** — Hospitality operators and management gain access to rigorous, peer-reviewed research on contemporary challenges and innovations. Program outputs on AI implementation in guest services, travel behaviour analysis, and operational efficiency directly inform business decision-making, competitive positioning, and management practice. Findings offer evidence-based alternatives to vendor-supplied insights and consultancy perspectives.

**Travel tech & distribution** — Technology vendors and distribution platforms benefit from academic research examining user behaviour, AI applications in travel planning, and digital innovation adoption. Program-funded studies provide independent validation of technology assumptions, identify implementation barriers and opportunities, and inform product roadmap development and industry standards evolution across hospitality distribution networks.

## Methodology and limits
This brief is based on publicly available information from Cornell's Center for Hospitality Research website. The source provides programme descriptions, explicit eligibility criteria targeting tenure-track faculty at the Nolan School of Hotel Administration, and lists of 2025 and 2026 grant recipients with faculty ranks and titles. The source does not include individual project titles, research methodologies, grant award amounts, application volume, selection criteria weighting, or research outcomes. Programme focus areas are drawn from the metadata classification, not from disclosed project descriptions. Access status and full programme details remain unspecified in public-facing materials.

---
© Cornell Center for Hospitality Research for the original report. This brief is an original editorial summary by TourismIntel (https://tourismintel.ai). Read the original: https://business.cornell.edu/centers/chr/research-publications/grailer-faculty-fellows