Zhen Tang

You can contact Zhen Tang at [email protected].

Zhen Tang, who also goes by Richard, is from Huaiyuan, a beautiful one-million-population small town in eastern China. Although Richard wanted to be a software engineer when he was in high school, he graduated from East China University of Science and Technology with B.A. and M.S. in Business Administration. Richard then earned his Ph.D. in Marketing with a minor in Economics from the University of Arizona. By training, he is an econometrician, using quantitative methods to address real business challenges. One stream of his research focuses on business location decisions, helping companies and business owners to select the best locations to grow and flourish. In addition, he also conducts research on improving employees’ productivity and well-being. In recent years, Richard has started to employ natural language processing and neural network to analyze social emotions and perceptions associated with topics (e.g., spirituality) and entities (e.g., a company or brand) he is interested in.

In a recent grant project sponsored by California 100 Initiative, Richard and colleagues studied California’s business climate and drew implications for California’s sustainable development. Richard also works with Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC) and World Trade Center Los Angeles (WTCLA) on annual reports of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in California and Los Angeles, serving international investors and the local communities in economic development.

Richard teaches business analytics, natural language processing, machine learning, and marketing strategy. In his life, Richard enjoys many sports and cooking.