Meet Your Faculty
As a UC Davis Master of Science in Business Analytics student, you’ll learn from world-renowned professors who are both academic experts and leading industry practitioners that are actively working across numerous segments of the big data industry. Additionally, our 10-to-1 student-professor ratio can ensure your professors will know you by name and serve as mentors during your education and after you graduate.
Mak Ahmad
Lecturer
Ph.D., Computer Science, UC Davis, In Progress
Master of Science (M.S.), Computer Science, Sonoma State University, 2017
Bachelor of Science (B.S.), Computer and Electrical Engineering, UC Davis, 2004
Research Expertise
Visualization and Human-Computer Interaction
Areas of Expertise
Technology Management
Ashwin Aravindakshan
Associate Professor and MSBA Academic Director
Associate Professor Ashwin Aravindakshan’s research interests center on learning how brands can better allocate their advertising resources (e.g., budgets, creatives, etc.) across different regions and/or multiple media over time. In addition to studying such dynamic advertising models, his research also investigates the dynamics of customer behavior and loyalty to help managers devise better communication and targeting policies in order to optimize their marketing mix at the individual level.
Hemant Bhargava
Distinguished Professor, Jerome and Elsie Suran Chair in Technology Management
Director, Center for Analytics and Technology in Society
Jörn Boehnke
Assistant Professor
Ph.D., University of Chicago
Research Expertise
Applied Microeconomics, Quantitative Marketing, Empirical Industrial Organization, Labor Economics, Online Market Platforms, Dynamics of Customer Behavior and Pricing
John Carter
Lecturer
Ph.D. in Statistics, University of Connecticut
John Carter is an accomplished data and analytics executive and consultant with broad industry experience leveraging data and analytics to drive business impact. His expertise includes enterprise data management, business analytics, predictive modeling, digital transformation and AI/machine learning. He is currently helping companies use data and analytics to strategically transform their organizations and capabilities to accelerate growth.
Gina Dokko
Professor
Ph.D., Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Research Expertise
Careers, job mobility, organization theory, organizational behavior, social networks, technology and innovation
Noah Gift
Lecturer
Master of Business Administration (MBA), University of California, Davis
Master of Science (M.S.), Cal State Los Angeles
Bachelor of Science (B.S.), Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
Greta Hsu
Professor
Ph.D., Stanford University, Graduate School of Business
Greta Hsu is Professor of Management at the Graduate School of Management at University of California, Davis. She received her Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior, M.S. in Statistics, and M.A. and B.A. Sociology from Stanford University.
Through her research, Hsu develops understanding of how market categories are socially constructed, how they are used and strategically manipulated by market actors, and how they shape market evolution and competitive dynamics. Her work includes studies of industry dynamics in the cannabis, e-cigarette, wine, film, book publishing, global fashion, and high-tech industries. She has published in journals such as Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal, American Sociological Review, and the British Medical Journal.
Hsu is an associate editor at Administrative Science Quarterly and co-editor of Research in Organizational Behavior. She was formerly a department editor and associate editor at Management Science, senior editor at Organization Science, and co-editor of the Culture and Economic Life book series at Stanford University Press.
Courses Taught
The Individual & Group dynamics, Managing People in High-Performance Organizations, Strategy and Structure, People Analytics
Fast Facts
- Expert in market categorization processes, organizational identity, and industry evolutionary dynamics
Awards
- Seeman Faculty Term Fellowship, UC Davis, 2011.
- Invited Speaker, Cornell University Johnson Graduate School of Management, 2011.
- Invited Speaker, The 13th Organizational Ecology Conference, Helsinki, Finland, 2010.
- Research Grant, National Science Foundation, Co-Primary Investigator on “SoD-TEAM: Longitudinal effects of design in open source projects,” ($750,000), 2006-09.
- Industry Studies Program Travel Grant, Sloan Foundation, (with S. Grodal), 2008.
- Small Grant in Aid of Research, UC Davis.
Pantelis Loupos
Assistant Professor
Ph.D., Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
Research Expertise
Social Customer Relationship Management, Digital Platforms, Business Analytics
Pantelis Loupos' research interests focus on understanding consumer behavior in digital platforms and in particular networked services. In particular, services whose value is a function of the number of customers they have and their underlying network topology.
Guru Pundoor
Lecturer
Ph.D., Management Science, R.H. Smith School of Business (2005), University of Maryland, College Park
Master of Science (M.S.), Systems Engineering, Institute for Systems Research (2002), University of Maryland, College Park
Bachelor of Technology, Mechanical Engineering (2000), Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India
Mehul Rangwala
Continuing Lecturer
Master of Business Administration (MBA), UC Davis Graduate School of Management
Bachelor of Science (B.S.), Electronics Engineering, India
Olivier Rubel
Professor
Professor Olivier Rubel is fascinated by two related questions: How can firms make better decisions in highly competitive environments? And what are the optimal strategies for implementing these decisions over time?
Rubel’s research examines how companies can best determine and allocate resources to marketing activities when facing a realistic chance of encountering a product harm crisis such as the SUV rollover controversy faced by Ford and Firestone in 2000 or the many product recalls Mattel was forced to make in 2007. His findings point to no single, simple answer to invest less or invest more. Rather, each firm’s best solution depends on the characteristics of the crisis, including its likelihood, its impacts on sales and on the effectiveness of marketing instruments.
Chih-Ling Tsai
Distinguished Professor of Management (Emeritus)
Ph.D., University of Minnesota
Research Expertise
Regression analysis, model selection, high-dimensional data, time series, biostatistics, application of statistics in business.
Teaching Field
Statistics
Professor Chih-Ling Tsai is a recognized expert in the practical application of statistics in business, including regression analysis, model selection, high-dimensional data, time series and biostatistics. He has had more than 100 research papers published in academic journals relating to statistics, marketing, finance and biostatistics. He teaches courses on forecasting and managerial research methods, and time series analysis and forecasting.
Tsai earned a Ph.D. in statistics from the University of Minnesota and an Master of Science (M.S.) in mathematics from the University of Illinois, Chicago Circle. He earned his Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in mathematics from Tamkang University.
Awards
- UC Davis Distinguished Teaching Award (2021)
- Elected Member, International Statistical Institute (2015)
- Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science AAAS 2015 Fellows (2015)
- Distinguished Professor in Management (2012)
- Robert W. Glock Chair Professor in Management (2005)
- Teacher of the Year, UC Davis, GSM, 1991, 1995, 1997-99, 2001-04, 2006-07, 2009-11, and 2016.
- Who's Who in the America and Who's Who in the World, Marquis Who's Who, 2000.
- 2000 Outstanding Intellectuals of the 20th Century, International Biographical Centre, 2000.
- Who's Who in the West and Who's Who in Science and Engineering, Marquis Who's Who, 1998.
- Fellow, American Statistical Association, 1996.
- 100 most prolific authors published in statistical journals (1988-93), National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
Vince Vengapally
Lecturer
Master of Business Administration (MBA), Wharton School of Business
Vince Vengapally is currently working in Product Management for Google Workspace. Vince leads various Google efforts around digital whiteboarding and develops Google Meet Hardware for Meeting Rooms and Classrooms.
Catherine Yang
Professor
Ph.D. Operations and Information Management, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, 2004
Master of Arts (M.A.), Operations and Information Management, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, 2001
Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.), Management Information Systems, School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, 1998
Research Expertise
Business analytics, big data analytics, predictive modeling, artificial intelligence and machine learning
Professor Yinghui (Catherine) Yang focuses her research on business intelligence, big data, machine learning, data mining methods for business applications, online shopping patterns analysis, user profiling, etc. Her research has been published in top-tier journals in Information Systems, Marketing and Computer Science, including Information Systems Research, Marketing Science, INFORMS Journal on Computing, IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering and ACM Transactions on Database Systems.