Leonard A. Hadley Professor in Business Analytics, Business Analytics

Professor, Business Analytics

Department Executive Officer, Business Analytics

PhD in Information Sciences and Technology, Pennsylvania State University-State College

MS in Computer Science, Eastern Michigan University

BE in Electrical and Information Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology

Data Science for Social and Business Networks. Online Health Communities, Social Media

Top Cited Article - Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 2024

Journal of Operations Management Ambassador Award, 2024

Master of Business Analytics Instructor of the Year: Elective - Tippie College of Business, 2023

Charles A. Taff Research Excellence Award - Tippie College of Business, 2023

Top Cited Article - Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 2023

Nominee, Best Student Paper Award - INFORMS Workshop on Data Science, 2021

Top Cited Article - Journal of Operations Management, 2021

Runner-up, Best Paper Award - INFORMS Workshop on Data Science, 2020

Best Paper Award - INFORMS Workshop on Data Science, 2017

Early Career Faculty Research Award - Tippie College of Business, 2016

Bai, J., Zhao, K., Li, L., Zeng, D., Li, Q., & Yang, F. (2024). Graph Representation Learning Based on Cognitive Spreading Activations. IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering. 36 (Dec) pp. 8408-8420. DOI: 10.1109/TKDE.2024.3437781.

Wang, X., Zhao, K., Amato, M. S., Stanton, C. A., Shuter, J., & Graham, A. L. (2024). The Role of Seed Users in Nurturing an Online Health Community for Smoking Cessation Among People With HIV/AIDS. Annals of Behavioral Medicine. 58 (2) pp. 122-130. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/abm/kaad063.

Gao, G., Liu, H., & Zhao, K. (2023). Live Streaming Recommendations Based on Dynamic Representation Learning. Decision Support Systems. 169 pp. 113957. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dss.2023.113957.

Yang, Y., Zhao, K., Zeng, D., & Jansen, B. J. (2022). Time-varying Effects of Search Engine Advertising on Sales–An Empirical Investigation in E-commerce. Decision Support Systems. 163 pp. 113843. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dss.2022.113843.

Tian, H., Zheng, X., Zhao, K., Liu, W., & Zeng, D. (2022). Inductive Representation Learning on Dynamic Stock Co-Movement Graphs for Stock Predictions. INFORMS Journal on Computing. 34 (4) pp. 1940-1957. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1287/ijoc.2022.1172.

Wang, X., Zhang, M., Fan, W., & Zhao, K. (2022). Understanding the Spread of COVID-19 Misinformation on Social Media--The Effects of Topics and a Political Leader’s Nudge. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology. 73 (5) pp. 726-737. DOI: 10.1002/asi.24576.

Wang, X., High, A., Wang, X., & Zhao, K. (2021). Predicting Users' Continued Engagement in Online Health Communities from the Quantity and Quality of Received Support. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology. 72 (6) pp. 710-722. DOI: 10.1002/asi.24436.

Zuo, Z. & Zhao, K. (2021). Understanding and Predicting Future Research Impact at Different Career Stages--A Social Network Perspective. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology. 72 (4) pp. 454-472. DOI: 10.1002/asi.24415.

Wang, X., Zhao, K., Zhou, X., & Street, W. N. (2020). Predicting User Posting Activities in Online Health Communities with Deep Learning. ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems. 11 (3) pp. Article 12. DOI: 10.1145/3383780.

Wen, W., Bai, J., Zeng, D. D., Zhao, K., & Li, Z. (2021). Learning Embeddings Based on Global Structural Similarity in Heterogeneous Networks. IEEE Intelligent Systems. 36 (6) pp. 13-22. DOI: 10.1109/MIS.2020.3027677.

"Social Dynamics of Substance Use in Online Social Networks for Smoking Cessation," Guest/Invited Speaker at Health Communication and Informatics Research Branch, National Cancer Institute, Washington, District of Columbia, December 2018.

"Online and Off the Web--Analyzing User Behaviors and Health Outcome in Online Health Communities," Guest/Invited Speaker at International Conference on Smart Health, Wuhan, China, January 2018.

"Concurrent Diffusions of Information and Behaviors in Online Social Networks," Guest/Invited Speaker at Winter Conference on Business Intelligence, Utah, March 2016.

"Social Dynamics of Substance Use in Online Social Networks for Smoking Cessation," Guest/Invited Speaker at VA Innovations in Healthcare Informatics Cyberseminar, January 2015.

"Users’ Roles and Involvement in Online Health Communities —a Social Support Perspective," Guest/Invited Speaker at China Summer Workshop on Information Management, Chengdu, China, June 2014.

"Sentiment influence and influential users in online health communities," Guest/Invited Speaker at 3M Computational Intelligence Colloquium, St Paul, Minnesota, July 2013.

"Role Identification - Influential users and community leadership," Guest/Invited Speaker at International Conference on Social Intelligence and Technology, University Park, Pennsylvania, May 2013.

"Recommendation in Reciprocal Bipartite Social Networks for Online Dating," Poster at Winter Conference on Business Intelligence, Snowbird, Utah, February 2013.

"Predicting Stock Price Movements with Dynamic Graph Neural Networks," Poster at Winter Conference on Business Analytics, Snowbird, Utah, March 2020.

"Multi-Relational Link Prediction for an Online Health Community," Accepted Speaker at INFORMS Workshop on Data Science, Seattle, Washington, January 2019.

Zhao, K. (Co-Principal). Understanding Gender Gaps in Academic Science through the Lens of Topic Fit: An Interdisciplinary Investigation Using a Big Data Approach. National Science Foundation (NSF). Funded. August 2022 - July 2024.

Zhao, K. (Multi-PI), Principal Investigator(s): Graham, A. Social Dynamics of Substance Use in Online Social Networks for Smoking Cessation. National Institutes of Health (NIH). Funded. September 2014 - August 2017.

Zhao, K. (Co-Investigator), Principal Investigator(s): Iulian Vamanu. Libraries as Resilience Hubs: Assessing Social Impacts and Learning from Best Practices. Institute of Museum and Library Services. Funded. August 2023 - July 2026.

Zhao, K. (Co-Investigator), Principal Investigator(s): Marina Del Rios. Dime la VerDAD (Verify, Debunk, and Disseminate). National Institutes of Health (NIH). Funded. July 2023 - December 2028.

Zhao, K. (Co-Principal), Principal Investigator(s): Laurian, L., Vamanu, I., Glanville, J., Nguyen, P., & Qian, H. Public Libraries for Disaster Resilience: Assessing Libraries’ Community Impacts in Times of Climate and Socio-Economic Crises. University of Iowa. Funded. January 2021 - December 2022.

Zhao, K. (Co-Principal), Principal Investigator(s): Su, R. Understanding Gender Gaps in Academic Science through the Lens of Topic Fit: An Interdisciplinary Investigation. Tippie College of Business. Funded. January 2021 - December 2022.

Zhao, K. (Co-Principal), Principal Investigator(s): Song, S. Effects of Supply Chain and Board Membership Networks on Firm Performances. Tippie College of Business. Funded. January 2020.

Zhao, K. (Co-Principal), Principal Investigator(s): Williams, M. In Whom We Trust: How Entrepreneurs’ Communication Moderates the Effect of Their Unmet Promises on Funders Reactions. Tippie College of Business. Funded. January 2020 - December 2020.

Zhao, K. (Principal Investigator). Support for the Doctoral Consortium Program at the IEEE International Conference on Healthcare Informatics 2016. National Science Foundation (NSF). Funded. September 2016 - August 2017.

Zhao, K. (Principal Investigator). Network Science Exploration Research Grant. Penn State University. Funded. January 2010 - December 2011.

Gao, G., Liu, H., Wang, C., Yang, L., & Zhao, K. (2023). Proactively Considering Future Externality for Recommendations in Live-Streaming Platforms.

Qu, X., Wang, X., Zhao, K., & Jiang, Z. (2023). Social Influence and the Co-Diffusion of Information and Behaviors on Online Social Networks—A Study of Prosocial Activity Diffusions on Online Social Networks.

Lin, Q., Zhao, K., Wang, X., & Sheng, O. (2021). Reciprocal Recommendations by Binary Matrix Completions with Comparison-Based Loss Function.

Zhai, P., Zhao, K., & Yang, Y. (2025). Multi-touch Attribution-enhanced Click-through Rate Prediction using Dynamic Graph Neural Networks.

Zhang, W., He, S., Zhao, K., Zhang, P., Yang, Y., & Zeng, D. (2025). Disentangling Hyperbolic Embeddings for Serendipity Recommendations.

Li, N., Wang, X., Lee, S., Liu, Y., & Zhao, K. (2025). Assembling Teams at the Knowledge Frontier: How Research Team Knowledge Continuity Supports Innovation Success in Combating COVID-19.

Rios, J., Zhao, K., Street, W. N., & Blackhurst, J. (2021). Predicting Stock Price Movements from Supply Chain Networks.

Professor, Business Analytics, University of Iowa

Faculty Director, Master of Business Analytics, Business Analytics, University of Iowa, 2020 - 2023

Henry B. Tippie Research Fellow in Business Analytics, Business Analytics, University of Iowa, 2018 - 2023

Associate Editor, Decision Support Systems, January 2020.

Associate Editor, Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, January 2020.

Editor, Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, January 2018.

Advisory/Consulting Editor, ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems, September 2020 - September 2021.

Associate Editor, Information Technology and Management, January 2020.

Associate Editor, International Conference on Information Systems, January 2018.

Associate Editor, International Conference on Information Systems, January 2016.