Dipra Jha, assistant professor of practice in the hospitality, restaurant and tourism management program, will be collaborating with global resort developer Las Vegas Sands Corp. on innovation research.

The collaboration is a result of the professor in residence program Jha recently participated in at the Las Vegas Sands’ flagship property Venetian-Palazzo Resort in Las Vegas.

Jha was the first person invited to participate in the professor in residence program, which is designed to bridge the gap between scholarship and practice in the hospitality industry. With more than 7,000 suites, the Venetian-Palazzo is the largest five-diamond resort in the world. It also has the second largest conference facility in the world offering 2.25 million square feet of meeting space.

Jha’s collaboration with Las Vegas Sands will focus on technology and process innovation leading to enriched guest experiences. He views the partnership between academia and industry as a way to engage in research that will define the hospitality industry of the future. Jha plans to use knowledge generated by this partnership to develop a new course in hospitality innovation at UNL.