Santa Clara University

Faculty Appointments for 2011-12

Four new instructors joined the ranks of tenure-track faculty in the Business School this fall, and a fifth will join us in January.

The OMIS Department will grow by three this year.

Haibing Lu and David Zimbra began teaching this fall; Ram Bala will arrive in January.

Haibing Lu joined the department from Rutgers University in New Jersey, where he was a teaching assistant as he completed his doctoral studies. His research interests include work in information systems security and data mining, particularly exploring privacy and security issues in data-oriented applications. Lu has co-authored papers appearing in the Journal of Computer Security and IEEE Transaction on Dependable and Security Computing, and has presented his work at many international conferences.  He received a B.S. and M.S. in mathematics from Xi'an Jiaotong University (China), and will receive his Ph.D. in management of information technology from Rutgers University (New Jersey) in 2011.

David Zimbra 's research focuses on data, text, and web mining, social media analytics, and business intelligence.  His research has appeared in MIS Quarterly, IEEE Intelligent Systems, and the Journal of Computer Mediated Communication. Zimbra earned the BSC in Operations and Management Information Systems, and MS in Management Information Systems from Santa Clara University, and will receive his Ph.D. in Management Information Systems from the University of Arizona in 2011.  His private sector experience includes work at Ernst & Young and Network Appliance.

John Ifcher has become a tenure-track assistant professor in the department of Economics, where he previously served as an academic year lecturer. His recent research focuses on social welfare programs, subjective well-being, time preference, and overconfidence. One recent paper investigates the impact of positive affect on time preference; another investigates the effect of welfare reform on happiness. He has published articles in the American Economic Review, the Eastern Economic Journal, and Poverty and Public Policy. Ifcher received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at Berkeley.  He also received a M.P.A. degree from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and a B.S. in computer science and psychology from the University of Michigan. He worked for the city of New York as the Senior Advisor to the Parks Commissioner between 1993 and 1998.

In the Marketing Department, Savannah Wei Shi focuses on dynamics in consumer decision-making, e-commerce, and retail management. She has co-authored two book chapters (Cluster Analysis, and Factor Analysis) in the forthcoming Wiley International Encyclopedia of Marketing, and presented research at the INFORMS Marketing Science Conference in Germany. Shi earned a bachelor of science degree in marketing from Fudan University (China), and will receive her Ph.D. in marketing from the University of Maryland, College Park, in 2011.