College of Business and Economics

Faculty Spotlight: Onochie Fan-Osuala, IT and Supply Chain Management

April 05, 2019

Written by Julie Woletz | Photo by Nicholas Pook

We would like to introduce Dr. Onochie Fan-Osuala, who teaches Data Mining for Business and Data Analytics and Business Intelligence courses for CoBE.* In his second year here, he says he jumped at the chance to teach in one of the best graduate programs in the country, and has found our students to be eager to learn.

Fan-Osuala was recently published in the International Journal of Forecasting, where he shared a forecasting model that helps stakeholders using crowdfunding to better predict the final amount that a crowdfunding campaign will raise.

When asked about what it takes to be successful in IT and analytics, Fan-Osuala shared that those who work in this area must be constantly learning and acquiring new skills, because IT and analytics constantly, and very rapidly, change. He said strong communication skills are also necessary, as data needs to be explained to others who may not understand it or know much about how the data can be useful.

He offers the following tip for graduate students: “Be more curious and eager to try new things while in the program. Explore more, ask questions. Graduate study is about pushing the boundaries of knowledge, and you can achieve that when you explore and try new things.”

When not researching or teaching, Fan-Osuala enjoys playing soccer and basketball.

*Please note that the faculty teaching specific courses are subject to change.