The proliferation of data in recent years has changed the way enterprises operate. ‘Data-savvy’ individuals are in huge demand and according to Glassdoor, they can make a base salary of $120K – $150K on average. The STEM approved M.S. in Business Analytics enables students to pursue the in-demand careers as business/data analysts or data scientists.
Zaki Malik, Ph.D. Department Head/Professor of Business Analytics
- Faculty
A Conversation with Dr. Malik
Why do you like teaching?
The opportunity to interact with college students and faculty members with various interests and backgrounds is a prime factor for me to pursue a career in academia. I am firmly of the opinion that the teaching methods we adopt have a great impact on the ability of students to absorb course materials as well as their perception about learning, knowledge and science. Inspirational learning has always been my motto since I joined academia in 2009. It aims at promoting a learning environment that motivates students.
Why did you choose your discipline?
My BS, MS, and PhD degrees are all in Computer Science. In the 90s, computer systems were slowly becoming ubiquitous, so it was a natural choice to pursue a discipline that had a bright future.
Tell us about a project you are working on or have completed.
We recently published a paper for extracting a weighted taxonomy of products from a Twitter feed. Nowadays, even before a new product comes to the market, or is to be announced, like at an Apple or Google event, users start the rumors/talk about the product design or specifications, and their expectations of it. With all this discussion, it is not only the product that affects the future success of the product but various other factors that can directly or indirectly influence the user's perspective. In this work, we present an approach to extract the most important concepts related to a product, being discussed on Twitter. We believe that this weighted taxonomy can be used to predict the success of the product even before the official release, and align marketing resources, etc. in a beneficial manner.
What did you want to be when you were a child?
An Army Commando (Arnold Schwarzenegger's movies left an imprint).
Why would you encourage a student to attend A&M-Commerce?
You cannot beat the affordable, world-class education in a very promising/happening geographical location. We are positioned in close proximity to a major metro area while being a small college town.
Educational Background
- Ph.D., Computer Science, Virginia Tech, 2008
- M.S., Computer Science, Virginia Tech, 2004
- B.S. Computer Science, Wichita State University, 2001
Activities and Awards
- Member INFORMS, AIS, IEEE, ACM
- Best Paper Award. IEEE ICICS (2016), IEEE ICWS (2015), ICE2T (2014).
Research Interests
- Service Computing
- Business Analytics
- Reliable Distributed Systems
- Social Networks
- Web Databases
- Semantic Integration Systems
Selected Publications
Featured Courses
- BUSA 533 Cyber Security and IT Auditing
- BUSA 539 Cyber Forensics & Info. Security Policy Governance
- BUSA 537 Advanced Analytics
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