Georgia Tech’s Master of Science in Analytics (MSA) program is offered both in Atlanta and—as of 2021—at its Shenzhen campus. Xiaoming Huo, professor in the Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, serves as Shenzhen’s MSA associate director.

“Similar to the OMSA [Tech’s Online Master of Science in Analytics], Shenzhen’s MSA is the same curriculum as the Atlanta program. But it is run separately, and I oversee everything,” Huo says. “The student admissions, the teaching assignments, the courses, and the practicums—everything related to the MSA, but at Shenzhen.”

In addition to supervising the Shenzhen MSA, Huo teaches statistical courses at Tech’s Atlanta campus that are taken by many MSA students as part of either the analytic track or the computing track.

“These classes teach students tools they can use to build predictive models that then enable them to extract useful insights from data,” explains Huo.

He particularly enjoys engaging with students and observing how they bring classroom theory to bear on real-world situations.

“Seeing students learn is so rewarding,” he says, “and it’s exciting to hear from them when they apply methodologies to actual problems. For example, they might go to a financial firm that helps companies sell stock. Lots of quantitative decisions go into that, so the firm gathers data from these companies and evaluates how much those companies are worth, how much stock they can sell at the optimal price and what the selling strategy will be.

“We teach them the methodology for this in school, and then the students go out into the real world and make things happen. That's the rewarding part.”

Huo’s own research focuses on statistical theory, statistical computing, and issues related to data analytics. He has made significant contributions on topics such as sparse representation, wavelets, and statistical problems in detectability.

“Today, data is ubiquitous, and we need to continue to develop tools to use that data and gain useful information from it,” Huo reflects. “The promise of this field is what makes me so interested in it—so many interesting applications and so much social impact. You can literally do just about anything with it.”

Watch a video of Professor Huo discussing the Shenzhen MSA program.