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
M.S. in Computer Science, Sonoma State University
B.S. in Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineering, UC Davis
Mak Ahmad is currently a director at Salesforce, where he oversees large cross-cloud infrastructure initiatives.
Previously, Ahmad spent many years with Google Cloud in roles spanning from partner platform product management, overseeing API infrastructure/design and project management of istio.
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: Organizational theory, organizational behavior, social networks, job mobility, technology and innovation
Noah Gift
Lecturer
MBA, University of California, Davis
M.S., Cal State Los Angeles
B.S., Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
Greta Hsu
Professor
Ph.D., Stanford University, Graduate School of Business
Courses Taught: The Individual & Group dynamics, Managing People in High-Performance Organizations, Strategy and Structure
Fast Facts
- Expert in market categorization processes, organizational identity, and industry evolutionary dynamics
- Department Editor, Management Science
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 and Master’s degrees in Statistics and 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 current work studies market dynamics in the cannabis, electronic cigarette, and global fashion industries.
Hsu’s papers include “Category Taken-for-Grantedness as a Strategic Opportunity: The Case of Light Cigarettes, 1964 to 1993,” published in the American Sociological Review; “Co-opt or co-exist? A study of cannabis dispensaries’ identity-based responses to recreational-use legalization in Colorado and Washington,” published in Organization Science; ”Multiple Category Memberships in Markets: A Formal Theory and Two Empirical Tests,” published in American Sociological Review; and “Jacks of All Trades and Masters of None: Audiences’ Reactions to Spanning Genres in Feature Film Production,” published in Administrative Science Quarterly.
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.
Mehul Rangwala
Lecturer
MBA, UC Davis Graduate School of Management
B.S. Electronics Engineering, India
Lecturer Mehul Rangwala has nearly 20 years of experience in information technology and quantitative and qualitative data analysis. An information technology manager at the Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District, Rangwala researches, plans and provides insights to the executive management on IT strategy and the latest technology trends while providing leadership in IT investments, cost/benefit analysis, asset management, IT operations and support.
Sanjay Saigal
Director of Analytics Strategy, Master of Science in Business Analytics
Long-time Silicon Valley tech executive and educator Sanjay Saigal is director of analytics strategy for the Master of Science in Business Analytics program. He is concurrently a lecturer in the UC Davis MBA and MSBA programs.
Chih-Ling Tsai
Distinguished Professor
Robert W. Glock Endowed Chair in Management
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 a M.S. in mathematics from the University of Illinois, Chicago Circle. He earned his B.S. in mathematics from Tamkang University.
Awards
- 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
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
Associate Professor
Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, The Wharton School
Research Expertise: Information technology, data mining, e-marketing and e-commerce
Associate Professor Catherine Yang focuses her research on business intelligence, data mining methods for business applications, big data, search advertising, online shopping patterns analysis, service marketing, segmentation and user profiling. Her research has been published in top-tier journals in information systems, marketing and computer science, including Marketing Science, INFORMS Journal on Computing, IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering and ACM Transactions on Database Systems.
Yang received her Ph.D. in operations and information management from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Before earning her doctorate, she earned a M.A. in managerial science and applied economics from the Wharton School. She received her B.E. in management of information systems from the School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University in China.
Awards
- Best Paper Award, China Summer Workshop on Information Management, 2009.
- Small Grant in Aid of Research, UC Davis, 2009, 2010.
- Research Grant (around $30,000USD), China National Natural Science Foundation, 2008.
- Best Paper Nominee, China Summer Workshop on Information Management, 2007.
- Small Grant in Aid of Research, UC Davis, 2007.