I’m Chief Disruption Officer, Professor of Accountancy, and Arthur Andersen Fellow at the Gies College of Business, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Founder and Principal of Innodative, an AI and emerging technology advisory practice. My path from astrophysics to data science to business reflects one consistent focus: extracting insight from complex systems and translating technical capability into practical decisions.

Career

Business and analytics leadership (2017–present)

As Associate Dean for Innovation (2019–2025), founded the Disruption Lab, established the Data Science Research Service, and directed the UI-Deloitte Foundation Center for Business Analytics following a $5 million pledge. Supervised the iVenture Accelerator (100+ ventures, $160M+ raised, 1,000+ jobs created) and experiential learning programs serving 150+ corporate clients annually. Introduced AI-driven instruction with multilingual avatar-based course delivery.

Data science leadership (2014–2017)

Led the Illinois Data Science Initiative, bringing together 40+ faculty and staff from twelve colleges to institutionalize data science education and research across campus.

Astrophysics research (1997–2017)

Twenty years developing machine learning methods for massive astronomical datasets. Co-founded the Dark Energy Survey and led early GPU applications in cosmology. Received the 2021 ACM SIGMOD Systems Award for contributions to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Mentored over 100 students who went on to Google, NASA, national labs, and leading universities. Ph.D. in Astrophysics, Johns Hopkins; postdoctoral work at Caltech.

The full academic record of publications, teaching, and media coverage is collected under Academia.

Contact

Advisory and consulting: principal@innodative.com (see Advisory).
Academic: bigdog@illinois.edu.
Media inquiries and speaking: either address works.

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