Professor honored withĢżteaching award for enthusiasm, engagement and his Advanced Analytics course.ā
āIām very fortunate that so many of my students enjoy the course, and say itās valuable for their growth and career,ā 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.Ģż
But Zhang ultimately went in a different direction, instead focusing on teaching the R programming language.Ģż
āProgramming was not something that was taught in a business school 10 years ago,ā said Zhang, a professor and interim chair of the Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Operations Division at Leeds. āToday, of course, thatās a requirement of any program in this area.āĢż
At commencement, Zhang was honored by the Leeds MBA Class of 2022 with a teaching award for the Advanced Data Analytics courseāa testament not just to his teaching ability, but the work heās 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 masterās programs like its degree in business analytics.Ģż
āThereāsĢżalways something new that comes up every year. Frankly, if you do not do updates, you canāt keep up to date with industry.ā
Dan Zhang, professor and interim chair,Ģżstrategy, entrepreneurship and operations division
āIām very fortunate that so many of my students enjoy the course, and say itās valuable for their growth and career,ā Zhang said of his Advanced Data Analytics class. āThatās so rewarding to me as a teacher.ā
Christina Uhlir (MSBAā21) said Zhang was among āthe most-loved professors of anyone in the program.āĢż
āHe would make sure everything he taught was directly applicable to real-life situations,ā said Uhlir, an analyst with Arrow Electronics who also earned a degree in neuroscience from CU Boulder in 2013. āMost of the cases he presented, because he worked as a consultant so long, were just right there.āĢż
She also called him a great mentor who was āgood 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.āĢż
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 āwhatever 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.āĢż
While technical courses like this one often are at the core of specialized masterās programs, they donāt always show up in an MBA curriculum. At Leeds, though, lessons in analytics and dataās ability to drive better decision making are a central part of an education. The newest academic building at the ĄÖ²„“«Ć½ Boulderāthe Rustandy Buildingāphysically joins the business and engineering disciplines, a powerful symbol of the joint research and academic programs Leeds and the College of Engineering & Applied Science.Ģż
Teaching tech to not be intimidating
āItās important that we remove the sense of intimidation students can feel about technology,ā Zhang said. āWe have students in the business analytics masterās program with degrees in history, or music, or Russianāzero background in codingāand I would tell them thatās the value of these programs. Theyāre for people who want to change their careers, and weāll work with you, starting slow and teaching you in a way thatās accessible, regardless of your technical acumen.āĢż
His own curiosity about technology, unsurprisingly, drives his work.
āIām very passionate about programming,ā he said. āI code a lot in my research, consulting and teaching, but I want students to keep perspective of what weāre really doing. Being able to work with technical tools is great, but itās more valuable to know how and when to apply them to real problems.ā Ģż
Thatās a theme of Zhangās research interests, which he simply described as āalways evolvingā; 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.Ģż
āThereās always something new that comes up every year,ā he said. āFrankly, if you do not do updates, you canāt keep up to date with industry. Itās a necessity.āĢż
For Uhlir, who completed her masterās during the pandemic, there was more to appreciate about the course than just how up to date it was.Ģż
āMaking those connections, when itās virtual, can be hard, but he made it not hard,ā Uhlir said. āEvery 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.ā
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