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.

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.