2018 Top 50 Undergraduate Professors Juanjuan Zhang, MIT (Sloan)

2018 Top 50 Undergraduate Professors: Juanjuan Zhang, MIT (Sloan) by: Andrea Carter on November 13, 2018 | 0 Comments Comments 696 Views November 13, 2018Juanjuan ZhangEpoch Foundation Professor of International Management and Professor of MarketingMassachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of ManagementThanks to her academic research investigations into all things related to social interactions and marketing strategies, MIT Sloan School of Management’s Juanjuan Zhang has been deemed a young scholar by many in her field. Professor Zhang is a four-time finalist for the John D. C. Little Award for the best marketing paper and, in 2011, she was named a Marketing Science Institute Young Scholar, a title awarded to â€Å"potential leaders of the next generation of marketing academics.†As a leader in her field, Zhang currently fulfills editorial roles for leading marketing journals including the Journal of Marketing Research and Quantitative Marketing and Econom ics. At the Sloan School where she teaches courses on marketing management, Professor Zhang has been a recipient of both the MIT d’Arbeloff Fund for Excellence in Education and the Jamieson Prize – the most prestigious of MIT Sloan’s teaching awards.Age: 39Education:  Ã‚  PhD in Business Administration, University of California Berkeley;  Economics, Tsinghua UniversityAt current institution since:  2006List of courses you currently teach: Marketing InnovationTwitter handle: See my bucket listWhat professional achievement are you most proud of? Making tenure at MIT at 34â€Å"I knew I wanted to be a business school professor when†¦Ã¢â‚¬  I took my first case class in college. It was amazing to see how the professor was able to teach lessons everyone found insightful when there were no absolutely right or wrong answers. â€Å"One word that describes my first time teaching† OverdressedWhat are you currently researching and what is the most signi ficant discovery youve made from it? How humans behave as subjects in experiments compared with, say, mice. Humans behave differently, but not always better.What is your most memorable moment as a professor? Project presentations at the end of my first semester of teaching Since you first started teaching, how has business education changed? The demand and supply of analytics training has grown rapidlyâ€Å"If I weren’t a business school professor, I would be†¦Ã¢â‚¬  An architectâ€Å"Here’s what I wish someone would’ve told me about being a professor†: There is so much to do (often in a good way) and never enough timeName of the professor you most admire and why: My PhD advisors, Professor J. Miguel Villas-Boas and Professor Teck Ho, for teaching me to be a thinker and a doerWhat do you enjoy most about teaching undergraduate business students? Being constantly inspired by their audacious young minds What’s the biggest challenge? Studentsâ €™ relatively short industry experience, which means not all of them can easily relate to business casesWhat is the most impressive thing one of your undergraduate students has done? Started, in their junior year, one of the earliest companies that uses virtual reality technologies to aid patient rehabilitationWhat is the least favorite thing one has done? Freeride on team workSince you’ve been teaching, how have students changed over the years? Knowledge has become more accessible from the internet, and students are more interested in learning the unique insight of the professorWhat does a student need to do to get an A in your class? Demonstrate that he/she has learned something usefulâ€Å"When it comes to grading, I think students would describe me as †¦Ã¢â‚¬  Fair, I hopeIf your teaching style/classroom experience had a theme song, what would it be? First reaction is something by ABBA Using just one word, describe your favorite type of student: passionate    Using just one word, describe your least favorite type of student: dishonest   Ã¢â‚¬Å"If my students can remember and still apply something from my course 10 years down the road, then I’ve done my job as their professor.†Fun fact about yourself: I see numbers in colorsWhat are your hobbies? Photography and more recently, gardeningHow did you spend your summer? In constant jetlag   Favorite place to vacation: The Azores   Favorite book: Records of the Three Kingdoms, a classic for game theory fans Favorite movie and/or television show: Have been following Westworld these daysFavorite type of music and/or favorite artist: Tom WaitsBucket list item #1: wingsuit/find time to post on social mediaWhat’s the biggest challenge facing business education at the moment? The need to teach skills to better communicate with other disciplines such as computer scienceâ€Å"If I had my way, the business school of the future would have much more of this†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Lifelo ng mentoring of studentsâ€Å"And much less of this† Stress from job placementLooking ahead 10 years from now, describe what â€Å"success† would be like for you: That my work turns around 10 companies and 10,000 lives Page 1 of 11