Professor honored withÌęteaching award for enthusiasm, engagement and his Advanced Analytics course.â
âIâm very fortunate that so many of my students enjoy the course, and say itâs valuable for their growth and career,â Dan Zhang says. He was honored at commencement with a teaching award from MBA students, who appreciate the value of the Advanced Data Analytics course he teaches at Leeds.
About a decade ago, when Dan Zhang was first approached to create a business analytics course, conventional wisdom dictated that it should be built around Excel modeling.Ìę
But Zhang ultimately went in a different direction, instead focusing on teaching the R programming language.Ìę
âProgramming was not something that was taught in a business school 10 years ago,â said Zhang, a professor and interim chair of the Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Operations Division at Leeds. âToday, of course, thatâs a requirement of any program in this area.âÌę
At commencement, Zhang was honored by the Leeds MBA Class of 2022 with a teaching award for the Advanced Data Analytics courseâa testament not just to his teaching ability, but the work heâs done to keep the course current. R has gone from edgy to a staple in the data science world; over time, Leeds has added Python, SQL and other data technologies to masterâs programs like its degree in business analytics.Ìę
âThereâsÌęalways something new that comes up every year. Frankly, if you do not do updates, you canât keep up to date with industry.â
Dan Zhang, professor and interim chair,Ìęstrategy, entrepreneurship and operations division
âIâm very fortunate that so many of my students enjoy the course, and say itâs valuable for their growth and career,â Zhang said of his Advanced Data Analytics class. âThatâs so rewarding to me as a teacher.â
Christina Uhlir (MSBAâ21) said Zhang was among âthe most-loved professors of anyone in the program.âÌę
âHe would make sure everything he taught was directly applicable to real-life situations,â said Uhlir, an analyst with Arrow Electronics who also earned a degree in neuroscience from ČÊĂń±Š”ä in 2013. âMost of the cases he presented, because he worked as a consultant so long, were just right there.âÌę
She also called him a great mentor who was âgood at fomenting interest in alternative careers. He helped a couple of my peers get started in more niche industries that can be harder to break into.âÌę
In the course, Zhang teaches practical programming skills that have immediate applicability at work. He includes both case studies and his own technical consulting work to ensure that âwhatever technology I introduce, there is a real-world emphasis that supports the business case for these skills. That focus on business value is what sets the course apart.âÌę
While technical courses like this one often are at the core of specialized masterâs programs, they donât always show up in an MBA curriculum. At Leeds, though, lessons in analytics and dataâs ability to drive better decision making are a central part of an education. The newest academic building at the ČÊĂń±Š”äâthe Rustandy Buildingâphysically joins the business and engineering disciplines, a powerful symbol of the joint research and academic programs Leeds and the College of Engineering & Applied Science.Ìę
Teaching tech to not be intimidating
âItâs important that we remove the sense of intimidation students can feel about technology,â Zhang said. âWe have students in the business analytics masterâs program with degrees in history, or music, or Russianâzero background in codingâand I would tell them thatâs the value of these programs. Theyâre for people who want to change their careers, and weâll work with you, starting slow and teaching you in a way thatâs accessible, regardless of your technical acumen.âÌę
His own curiosity about technology, unsurprisingly, drives his work.
âIâm very passionate about programming,â he said. âI code a lot in my research, consulting and teaching, but I want students to keep perspective of what weâre really doing. Being able to work with technical tools is great, but itâs more valuable to know how and when to apply them to real problems.â Ìę
Thatâs a theme of Zhangâs research interests, which he simply described as âalways evolvingâ; data-driven decision making is a key focus, and insights in this and related areas have appeared in top research journals, including Management Science and Operations Research. His insights in areas like dynamic programming and revenue management and pricing help him keep the analytics course fresh amid so much change.Ìę
âThereâs always something new that comes up every year,â he said. âFrankly, if you do not do updates, you canât keep up to date with industry. Itâs a necessity.âÌę
For Uhlir, who completed her masterâs during the pandemic, there was more to appreciate about the course than just how up to date it was.Ìę
âMaking those connections, when itâs virtual, can be hard, but he made it not hard,â Uhlir said. âEvery class, he would show up, turn on his camera and just ask how we were doing. He had the same enthusiasm for us that he did about his subject matter, and that just blew me away.â
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