Assistant Professor
Department of Information Systems
College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT)
University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC)
Baltimore, MD
Email: lujiec at umbc dot edu
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I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Information Systems at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC). I lead the Lab for Informatics for Human Flourishing. I have about 20 years of academic and real-world experience in applied machine learning, statistics, data mining, analytics, and visualization. Before I joined UMBC in August 2020, I spent about 15 years at the Auton Lab at Carnegie Mellon University under the guidance of Dr. Artur Dubrawski. During those formative years, I am fortunate to be immersed in the culture of the relentless drive for real-world impact via use-inspired research.
I received my Ph.D. in Information Systems (2020) from the School of Information Systems & Management at Heinz College, Carnegie Mellon University. I was a fellow of PIER ( Program of Interdisciplinary Educational Research), funded by the US Department of Education. I received master’s degrees in Information Systems (MISM, 2004) and Statistics (2012) from Carnegie Mellon University. My undergraduate degree is in international business and computer science (double major), from Shanghai Jiaotong University, P.R.China.
Before I stepped into academia, I was a professional accountant (CPA) for a big 4 accounting firm and a financial analyst with a Fortune 500 company. I also had a short stint in journalism. I was part of the project team that researched and produced one of the first lists of Chinese entrepreneurs (“Forbes China rich list”) back in 2002.
I enjoy nature walking (as an excellent incubator for ideas), readings (to satisfy my curiosity in a wide range of topics from nature to human processes), and learning new skills (I am a piano student). I love to interact with people from diverse cultures and educational backgrounds and learn from them. I enjoy mingling with young people, including my students and mentees, my teenage boy, and his friends. But I also enjoy talking to seniors from whom I often glean pearls of wisdom.