faculty

Sezgin Ayabakan (Ph.D., University of Texas, Dallas), JaeHwuen Jung (Ph.D., University of Minnesota), and Konstantin Bauman (Ph.D., Moscow State University) join the MIS department as Assistant Professors in fall 2017.

Dr. Ayabakan, who was previously an Assistant Professor at University of Baltimore and faculty fellow at the Schaefer Center for Public Policy, is researching healthcare by applying analytics to analyze very large data sets from hospitals. He will apply his analytics background and practical experience working with big data to teach the MIS department’s award winning GenEd Data Science course. 

Dr. Jung, who recently completed his dissertation, is examining the role of incentive structures in online and mobile forums using field experiments. Dr. Jung will apply his industry experience in the telecomm industry as well as research on social gaming and networks to teach Analytics to majors and minors across the Fox School.

Dr. Bauman, who was previously a research scientist at New York University, is a machine learning expert focusing on researching recommendation systems. Dr. Bauman will apply his extensive technical expertise including industry experience as a software engineer to teach programming. 

Getting a named professorship is like making it to a pro ball team, says Dr. Youngjin Yoo, Professor of Management Information Systems and Director, Center for Design and Innovation, Fox School of Business and Management, Temple University.  On Friday, November 14, he was named the “Harry A. Cochran Professor of Management Information Systems” at the Fox School’s Research and Teaching Award ceremony.

Harry A. Cochran is “the dean who laid the foundation upon which the Fox School of Business thrives,” said Fox School Dean, M. Moshe Porat, “being recognized as the inaugural holder of a professorship in his name is a significant honor.”

The honor is not, Yoo says, just a validation of his research but of the ideas he pursues.  The unique viewpoint– that digital technology is now ubiquitous, in every part of our lives, and that it requires a mix of creativity, innovation and even a little philosophical examination to manage and effectively use technology and the tools it creates- is one that has evolved over years of study, research and life.

“When Youngjin first came to Fox, we not only saw in him a good researcher, but also what I like to call an academic entrepreneur,” Porat said. “He’s not simply someone with an idea who follows the conventional way of thinking. He always finds a different angle, using a creative, innovative and contrarian way of thinking. He has distinguished himself in his research, in the grants he has received and in the creativity that he has brought to the Management Information Systems department and the Fox School of Business.”

Why is Yoo so creative, innovative and contrarian?  The answer dates back to Yoo’s experiences as a student in South Korea. “How,” Yoo asked then, and still ponders now, “can I think about ways to improve human lives with the tools and resources we have?” As a teenager Yoo was determined to become a government civil servant, one of the obvious paths (along with doctor, lawyer or engineer) open to smart kids growing up with limited resources. Until he entered Seoul National University and found himself studying management and business administration; the econ department didn’t want him.  At university, Yoo read a passage which he says changed his life: If academic disciplines start from pure science to applied one, then management is the ultimate destination of applied science as it explores ways to improve human lives by mobilizing all the resources that the creator has given to people.

It was also at University that his determination, and maybe his ability to be contrary, were forged. Early on he made one trivial arithmetic mistake on an exam in his operations research class and earned a low final grade, despite his protestations to the professor that it was a small mistake. Yoo spent two years studying the material and signed up for advanced operations research, determined to prove the professor wrong in his assessment of Yoo’s ability. The first day of class, he answered a question correctly and, when asked, explained his answer so well that the professor told Yoo he, too, should teach.  The professor then wrote a recommendation for Yoo to study in the U.S. Yoo earned his Ph.D. in Management at the R. H. Smith School of Business, The University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland in 1997.

The rest of the story is a multi-faceted journey of research and publishing in the areas of digital innovation, design, organizational genetics, and the societal use of technology.  He is currently a senior editor for the “MIS Quarterly” and other journals. He’s worked with industries ranging from Samsung Electronics to American Greetings and, recently, was featured (with 12 other technologists) in Philadelphia Magazine’s, “The Smartest People in Philadelphia.” And, of course, he’s taught.  His university experience is global, ranging from Sweden and China to the more local world at The Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University.

At Temple, Yoo has worked both inside and outside the classroom; he’s the Founding Director of Center for Design+Innovation at Temple. 

Design is, Yoo says, “the driver of innovation, particularly in the digital domain.  Digital technology is a force that destabilizes things…blurs the boundary of product and industry, and design is how we re-imagine things.” 

So, like musical notes or written language, digital technology will never “remain in a box” and must be created and re-created. “Design is inseparable” from digital technology, Yoo says. The necessary creativity can be found in surprising places.

Recently, Yoo’s taken his work to the streets of Philadelphia and brought Philly teenagers onto campus via Temple’s Urban Apps and Maps Studios program (funded by The Knight Foundation and EDA.) The project teaches teens design, coding, and story telling so they can create apps that help solve problems encountered by residents of urban communities—like turning vacant lots into viable urban community farms. The students are “awesome” Yoo says.  “They do things we don’t think about…a goldmine of creativity.”

Yoo says that working with high school students isn’t the only surprise he’s encountered over the past few years.  The fact that he’s become a named professor, his own success, still seems to startle him. He’s “honored, flattered…it’s great news.” But he’s not ready to rest on his laurels or bask in his new title. Yoo’s moving forward by looking back—at 200 years of technology, and how it was managed and has been a driver of economic change.  

That econ department in Korea?  They don’t know what they missed.

The Fox School’s MIS department is pleased to welcome three new full-time faculty in fall 2014. We took a moment to speak to them about their backgrounds, previous positions, and plans for Temple.

Brad Greenwood, Assistant Professor, received his Ph.D. in Information Systems from the University of Maryland, College Park. He is an avid cook who loves to spend time in the kitchen.

“Fox MIS offers the unique opportunity to work with world class scholars whose discipline spanning research not only pushes the boundaries of the IS context, but focuses on resolving significant public welfare problems which are faced by both practitioners and everyday people.”

 

Min-Seok Pang, Assistant Professor, received his Ph.D. in Business Administration from University of Michigan, and most recently served as Assistant Professor, School of Management, at George Mason University. His interdisciplinary research reflects his own personal interests in news and politics, and spans IT, business, public administration, and political sciences.

“What is most exciting about joining one of the best MIS group in the world is that I will have a chance to work with excellent and bright MIS doctoral students. It would be both a responsibility and a privilege to help future scholars thrive in academia.”

 

Jeremy J. Shafer, Assistant Professor, received his M.S. in Management Information Systems from Fox School of Business, Temple University, where he was most recently Director of Solutions Development. Shafer is deeply committed to service and volunteering; he and his wife are also advocates for and participants in special-needs adoption.

“I very much enjoyed teaching in the MIS department as an adjunct.  When the opportunity arose for me to teach full time, I jumped at it! I believe in enabling people to create with technology, not just passively consume it.  Putting those skills in the hands of entrepreneurial students is very rewarding to me.”