Month: March 2017

Faculty Spotlight – Marshall Dougherty

Marshall Dougherty is a graduate of UConn’s Management Information Systems (MIS) program and now an adjunct faculty member in the Operations and Information Management (OPIM) Department. In addition to his work
here at UConn, Dougherty runs the daily operations of the Corporate Audit Data Integrity Team at Traveler’s in Hartford.

After graduating from UConn and receiving many top job offers, Dougherty went on to work at Deloitte, which at the time he said was ranked as the #1 place to start your career. He said he owes his success to the UConn MIS program in preparing him extremely well for a career in the field.

“I have nothing but great things to say about the department and how it prepared me,” Dougherty said.

Because of his great experience at the university, Dougherty began working at UConn in the Fall of 2015. He said he enjoyed the technical training that he was doing at Traveler’s, which made him realize that he wanted to pursue teaching. Dougherty said he showed his interest to UConn’s OPIM Department and he was fortunate that they took him up on the offer.

He currently teaches the predictive modeling course in data and text mining, as well as the data analysis for audits and investigations course, which he said involves a great deal of SAS programming. Just last week, Dougherty taught the Introduction to SAS workshop, as part of the department’s OPIM Innovate Initiative. He enjoys sharing his knowledge of SAS programming because he knows it is an extremely valuable skill.

Dougherty said the best part about teaching for him is the impact that he can have on his students’ careers and lives.

“I love bringing perspective from the industry to students and imparting tangible skills that can help them land a job or excel at one,” Dougherty said.

On the other hand, at Traveler’s, Dougherty works with a team of SAS and SQL professionals conducting data analytics to support the audit function and developing automation approaches to controls across various business areas.

He said he loves his job at Traveler’s because of the variety. Dougherty said his team is constantly getting involved in new and different projects. He said he mainly works on analytics. He enjoys his role because it gives him the opportunity to learn many new things while getting a true sense of the inner-workings of an expansive enterprise.

Within the information technology field, Dougherty is most interested in data analytics, forensic data work, and business process automation.

Information technology is an extremely marketable field, which is why he would advise students to enter into it. He said if you have an understanding of technology you will always be able to find work.

“It goes without saying that technology powers almost every facet of our lives at this point,” Dougherty said.

Dougherty also said he appreciates how the field emphasizes concrete skills.

As for his future goals in the field, Dougherty said its onward and upward. He hopes for his team at Traveler’s to increase their reach across the enterprise to serve even more customers than they currently do.

“The bigger our footprint can be, the happier I’ll be,” he said.

He said he hopes for his team at Traveler’s to increase their footprint across the enterprise. He said that because of the broad view they currently have of the company, his team will be extremely valuable to serve even more customers than they currently do.

Dougherty said he hopes to increase his involvement with the UConn OPIM Department as much as his job at Traveler’s and family life will allow.

Outside of work, Dougherty said he is just a simple guy. He and his family love the outdoors, are cat and dog owners and raise chickens, he said. He and his wife have one son and they are expecting another in May, he said. In the future, he plans to travel more often, as it is something he truly enjoys.

Getting Started with SAS

The Operations and Information Management (OPIM) Department’s technology workshops continued on Friday, March 24th with an Introduction to SAS. The workshops are sponsored by the department throughout the semester as part of the OPIM Innovate Initiative.

UConn Management Information Systems (MIS) graduate and current OPIM adjunct faculty member, Marshall Dougherty instructed the workshop in the Gladstein Lab. In addition to his position here at UConn, Dougherty works at Traveler’s in Hartford where he said he uses SAS technology to perform analytics and automation.

According to Dougherty, SAS is a programming language, computer program and a software suite all in one. He said that the reason he really likes SAS is because it allows you to code the way you want to. A foundation of knowledge in SQL is very helpful to understanding SAS, because it can be used within the SAS program.

Through the workshop, Dougherty said he hoped to help the attendees to get over the initial “fear factor” of starting to work with SAS. He said his goals were to provide attendees with an educational first experience with SAS by introducing them to the basic functions, such as inputting information.

The workshop gave a hands-on, interactive experience with SAS. Dougherty gave recommendations on how to successfully work with SAS and he guided students through using the program. Students were able to ask questions and receive assistance during the presentation.

“I hope the audience came away with a basic understanding of how to take excel files, put them into SAS and work with it,” Dougherty said.

One MIS student in attendance, Marc Senatore said he found the workshop to be very instructional. He said it sparked his interest in exploring SAS further. Senatore said it made him very interested in taking Dougherty’s SAS class in the Fall, if he were not graduating.

The next workshop, an Introduction to Raspberry Pi will be taking place on Friday, April 7th in the Gladstein Lab. Please register here to reserve your spot in the workshop as space is limited.

Additionally, Jon Moore, the coordinator of the OPIM Innovate Initiative said he would like to hear any feedback or suggestions that students have and to please email him at jonathan.a.moore@uconn.edu with these requests.

IBM is hiring Digital Analytics Consultants

Recent Management Information Systems (MIS) graduate, Scott Butler (2016) is looking to build a strategy and analytics team at IBM. The company is looking for students with a strong technology background in programs like SQL, VBA and more.

You can find out more about this position here.

If you are interested in being a part of the team, please reach out to Scott Butler at Scott.Butler@ibm.com.

Student Spotlight – Nathan Nye

After taking classes on computer science in high school, Nathan Nye knew he wanted to pursue a college degree that incorporated business with computers. At the start of his college career here at UConn, Nathan visited HuskyTech for an issue with his computer, where he learned of the Management Information Systems (MIS) major.

For Nathan, he is intrigued by information technology because it is constantly changing and evolving. He said he is always learning something new in this field because the constant change forces him to keep up with new technologies and challenges.

“There are so many different ways to go about solving a problem with technology so it allows you to be creative in finding a solution,” Nathan said.

Nathan said that the UConn School of Business does a great job at allowing students to individualize their plans of study to reflect their personal interests, along with the business curriculum. He said that he enjoyed being able to take a variety of music and computer science courses because of his interests in audio and programming.

As a senior, Nathan has acquired a variety of internship experiences over the course of his time here at UConn. But unlike many MIS majors, Nathan’s internships have been primarily with small companies or startups.

Nathan said he believes that working for smaller companies was extremely beneficial for him, personally. He said that smaller companies can generally adapt to new technologies and change direction quicker. He liked the small business environment because it allowed him to work with cutting edge technologies and a diverse set of tasks each day.

In his most recent internship experience at COCC, Nathan worked on website configuration for various financial institutions.

“It was cool being able to say I worked on anything from configuration changes to sites where millions of dollars are transacted daily to helping potential clients with branding and design,” Nathan said.

Nathan encourages all current MIS students to obtain internship experiences over the course of their college careers. He said that work outside of the classroom allows for building a diverse skill set.

“Think about something you really enjoy doing and think about the skills you would need to run that as a business by yourself,” he said.

A piece of advice Nathan offered from his own experience when looking for internships is to ask about the possibility of working remote. COCC allowed Nathan to continue his summer internship during the school year because the company had the capabilities to enable him to work from anywhere, he said. Continuing this internship through the school year has been even more beneficial for him because it allowed him to work on even larger tasks because he was already acclimated with the company, he said.

After graduation, Nathan hopes to dive deeper into programming for web-based applications. Nathan said that he and his brother are planning to start their own audio company to build synthesizers in the form of guitar pedals to simplify performances for drone musicians.

“I like the idea of being self sufficient and being able to create your own job after graduating,” Nathan said.

He said he is currently learning to program in PureData.  His goal is to implement PureData patching to his company’s devices in order to create highly complex sonic textures.

“My ultimate goal in the field is to be able to say that I used computers and technology to build something that truly helped someone,” Nathan said.

OPIM teams up with Service Learning

The Operations and Information Management (OPIM) Department here at UConn is teaming up with the university’s Service Learning to provide different involvement opportunities for students.

“Service Learning is a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities,” (The Carnegie Foundation).

Service Learning has two different events coming up that they would like to welcome students, faculty and staff to attend. One event will be a presentation and panel discussion on Service Learning as an Economic Driver and the other is an Innovation Night for young entrepreneurs to showcase a product utilizing social media.

More information on these events are as follows:

Tuesday, April 4th – Service Learning as an Economic Driver

Monday, April 10thConnecticut Innovation Nights

If you wish to attend one or both of these events follow the links above to register in advance!

Rotational positions with Sony Music Entertainment

Sony Music Entertainment is looking to fill two rotational positions in Finance and Information Systems & Technology (IS&T). UConn School of Business students are encouraged to apply! Rotations occur in New York, New Jersey, and one international rotation.

For more information follow the links to each position below:

Financial Analyst Trainee Rotational Program

IS&T Trainee Rotational Program

Interested individuals should send their resume and a statement of interest to recruit@business.uconn.edu as soon as possible, as the application deadline has already passed! Please address the email with attention to Kathy Hendrickson and the title of the specific role in the Subject line.

Faculty Spotlight – Wei-Kuang Huang

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Wei-Kuang Huang teaches UConn’s Business Information Systems and Database Management courses at all three of the university’s regional campuses in Hartford, Waterbury and Stamford. Shortly after completing his Ph.D at Rutger’s University in 1998, Huang began his teaching career at UConn. In 2001, Huang briefly worked at the Storrs campus before joining the newly developed Business Technology program (Now Business Data Analytics major) at the regional campuses.

Huang’s main areas of expertise in the technology field are workflow management systems, database systems, information systems security, electronic data interchange and client-server computing. Although he is not actively conducting any research in these areas, he serves on an editorial board, as well as a peer reviewer for database management and data security journals.

As for his favorite part about teaching, Huang said it is the interaction with his students. It excites him to to watch them grow in knowledge, as well as to learn from them.

“I’ve always felt that it is a privilege to be a teacher. I not only have the opportunity to pass down my academic knowledge, but also share my life experience and hopefully inspire them in some way,” Huang said.

He said he believes that teaching and learning go hand-in-hand. For Huang, teaching is a very rewarding and humbling experience.

My students are the reason why I am always so motivated to teach,” He said.

Over the past eight years, Huang has been leading his students in various IT case competitions. He said these competitions are a way to network with the Business Data Analytics (BDA) industry and alumni. Huang said he hopes to continue to provide these networking opportunities to UConn’s regional campuses.

In the field of BDA, Huang is fascinated by the progression of transforming data into information, knowledge, and ultimately, business intelligence, he said. Along with being an extremely interesting field, Huang said that these BDA processes are critical for success in the business world. He said the necessity of BDA has emerged in recent years due to the advancement in technology.

Due to the emerging focus on data science and data engineering in businesses today, Huang said that BDA is becoming a very demanding and sought-after major.

“Instead of entering a general business study, the BDA program provides a more specialized and up-to-date skillset that is ultimately beneficial for the job market today,” Huang said.

He believes that there is a very promising future for the undergraduate BDA program on UConn’s regional campuses due to excellent job placement of recent graduates of the MSBAPM (MS in Business Analytics and Project Management) program.

Outside of his work here at UConn, Huang is extremely passionate about the arts. He comes from a very musical family and enjoys listening to music. Additionally, Huang loves traveling and photography.

 

Jason Meller presented at IT Security Reception

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The UConn Operations and Information Management (OPIM) Department, along with the Information Management Association (IMA) sponsored a reception prior to the School of Business IT Security Executive Lecture on Thursday, March 9th.

Students and faculty of the OPIM Department gathered in the Gladstein Lab to network and listen to a presentation by Jason Meller, a graduate of the Management Information Systems (MIS) program here at UConn.

Meller is the CEO and co-founder of a cyber security startup company called Kolide out of Boston. Since graduating from UConn in 2007, Meller has spent his career building technology that enables cyber security professionals to protect our country’s interests from threats around the globe.

In an informal presentation and Q&A setting, Meller spoke about his experiences that led him to the IT field, what go him to where he is today and his passion for his career.

Meller said he began his career at UConn as a Marketing major. He said that the pivotal point in discovering his interest in pursuing a career in MIS was when he took the Introduction to Information Systems class with Professor Ramesh Shankar.

Meller said that in his time at UConn he enjoyed working at HuskyTech and completing his Capstone course, which ultimately led to his first job with GE. During his time at HuskyTech, Meller said he loved figuring out the ‘puzzle’ of how a particular piece of malware was created and how it worked. He said he loved to be able to understand problems within technology and to determine what went wrong.

Right before graduating from UConn, Meller was completing his Capstone course. In this course, he said companies would come to the students with different problems and seeking solutions. One of the companies that year was GE. He said GE had a problem with their Credit Decision System. Meller said he remembers being extremely excited to work on this project because it was something very important and could have a huge impact if they discovered a solution.

“I love building things that help people, on a team with other smart people,” Meller said.

During his Capstone, Meller networked with executives at GE and landed his first job as a member of GE’s Computer Incident Response Team.

Throughout his career, Meller said he constantly pulls from his MIS knowledge to help build different tools and assist other member of his teams in discovering different solutions relating to IT Security.

Today, Meller is working on his startup company Kolide. He said that Kolide is based on something that Facebook created called osquery, which converts all computer files into a relational database to query with basic SQL.

Three weeks ago, Kolide launched an osquery fleet manager product, a central interface where users can ask questions across infrastructure and receive solutions within seconds. Meller said Kolide is open-sourced which he said is what separates his company from the competition. Open-sourced means that anyone can go online and see how it works in powering solutions.

Meller said his future plans for Kolide are to build an IT Security App Store where users can create plugins to enable wifi survey and updated location services.