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Data Analytics Faculty
Danielle Edwards, M.S.
Assistant Professor of Practice in Information Systems
345 Aliber Hall | 515-271-3725 | danielle.edwards@drake.edu
Danielle Edwards has been working in the fields of business, IS, and education for over 20 years. She began her career at ITAGroup as an IT trainer and systems coordinator and later served at Wellmark BlueCross BlueShield as an applications and help desk specialist and an applications developer. Before joining Drake University, Danielle was a full-time faculty member at AIB College of Business where she co-developed a program to teach voice captioning, the first program of its kind in the country. She then served as an assistant dean of online education where she was instrumental in advancing online programs for the college. She has worked in the field of closed captioning and has trained dozens of captioners in her independent business. Danielle joined Drake University's Zimpleman College of Business in 2017, first as an adjunct instructor and now full-time as an Assistant Professor of Practice in Information Systems. Danielle teaches undergraduate courses in Microsoft Office, information systems, and database management.
Lendie Follett
Associate Professor of Business Analytics
324 Aliber Hall | 515-271-4158 | lendie.follett@drake.edu
Dr. Follett is an Associate Professor of Business Analytics in the Zimpleman College of Business at Drake University. She received her Ph.D. in statistics from Iowa State University, where she also served as a statistical consultant. Professor Follett has an extensive background in Bayesian techniques, with projects that are interdisciplinary in nature and involve using data to make meaningful inference. Her efforts are largely driven by a commitment to advancing research in issues surrounding food insecurity, nutrition, and overall well-being. Most recently, she has performed Bayesian analyses to investigate food insecurity and nutritional choices, stochastic volatility and jumps in cryptocurrency, discrete choice modeling, and human capabilities, to name a few. Professor Follett teaches courses relating to probability, statistical programming, generalized linear models, and data mining. In addition, she enjoys teaching the data analytics capstone course, which partners students with a company to use real-life data to solve real-life problems. Reproducible research and analytics is something she implements into teaching whenever she can.
Wiranthe Herath
Assistant Professor of Statistics
349 Aliber Hall | 515-271-3730 | wiranthe.herath@drake.edu
Dr. Herath is an Assistant Professor of Statistics at Drake University. He received his Ph.D. in Mathematics with a specialization in Statistics from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale in 2022. For his performance in both teaching and conducting research at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, he was awarded an outstanding graduate teaching award and a dissertation research award. His research interests are in the areas of dimension reduction methods of multivariate time series. He is mainly interested in the usage of the envelope methods and the reduced-rank methods in VAR models.
Malgorzata Kolotylo-Kulkarni
Assistant Professor of Information Management & Business Analytics
356 Aliber Hall | 515-271-2007 | malgorzata.kolotylo-kulkarni@drake.edu
Dr. Kolotylo-Kulkarni received her Ph.D. from Florida International University in Business Administration specializing in Management Information Systems. Her research interests include healthcare IS and cognitive IS, particularly, decision making, decision support systems, and information and knowledge management. In her dissertation she investigated the effectiveness of online decision tools within the contextual settings of decision scenarios, specifically the role that information delivery, decision environment, and user's cognition play in the effectiveness of those tools. She is particularly interested in consumers' decision processes in health insurance purchases.
Eric Manley
Associate Professor of Computer Science
327 Collier-Scripps | 515-271-2177 | eric.manley@drake.edu
Dr. Manley is an Associate Professor of Computer Science; he holds a B.S. in Mathematics and Computer Science (2004, University of Nebraska at Omaha), an M.S. in Computer Science (2006, University of Nebraska-Lincoln), and a Ph.D. in Computer Science (2009, University of Nebraska-Lincoln).
His primary research interest is in computer networking with a recent focus on both theoretical and systems-level issues in network coding and all-optical networks. He also has a strong interest in computer science education and teaches a wide variety of computer science courses including introductory computer science, artificial intelligence, compilers, and computer ethics.
Bradley Meyer
Associate Professor of Management and International Business
312 Aliber Hall | 515-271-2490 | bradley.meyer@drake.edu
Dr. Meyer earned his Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from Iowa State University in 1989 with a minor in Computer Science. He teaches operations management at the undergraduate level and business analytics at the graduate level. Research interests include process entropy, continuous improvement, and computer technology in education. Dr. Meyer has developed and programmed numerous online educational simulation exercise he uses in his classes. He has recent publications in Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education, the Journal of Management, and the International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management. With respect to Data Analytics, Dr. Meyer's primary area of expertise lies in prescriptive analytics: optimization and simulation.
Alanah Mitchell
Aliber Distinguished Professor of Information Systems
212B Aliber Hall | 515-271-3724 | alanah.mitchell@drake.edu
Professor Mitchell is an Aliber Distinguished Professor of Information Systems and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs in the Zimpleman College of Business at Drake University. She is an AIS Distinguished Member Cum Laude and a member of the ACM. Professor Mitchell’s research focuses on the design, implementation, and use of information and communication technologies for collaboration, specifically in global virtual teams.
Additionally, she researches in areas of e-commerce and information systems pedagogy. She has published in such journals as Business Horizons, Communications of the Association for Information Systems, DATA BASE for Advances in Information Systems, Electronic Markets, Information Technology and People, IT Professional, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, and Organizational Dynamics as well as others. Professor Mitchell teaches Information Systems Analysis and Design as well as Database Management.
Meredith Moore
Assistant Professor of Computer Science
325 Collier-Scripps Hall
meredith.moore@drake.edu
Dr. Moore is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Drake University. Dr. Moore obtained her B.S. in Computer Science and Neuroscience from Drake University in 2015. She then went on to get her Ph.D. from Arizona State University in Computer Science as a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. Dr. Moore's research focuses on using machine learning to improve the accessibility of technology for individuals with disabilities. Specifically, her dissertation focused on developing machine learning algorithms to improve the intelligibility of the speech of individuals with voice disorders.
Troy Strader
Aliber Distinguished Professor of Information Systems
332 Aliber Hall | 515-271-2753 | troy.strader@drake.edu
Dr. Strader received his Ph.D. in Business Administration (Information Systems) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1997. He teaches courses on electronic commerce strategy, website development, computer programming, database management, and XBRL. Dr. Strader’s research interests include information technology ethics, digital product management, online consumer behavior, information technology adoption, and the impact of the Internet and e-business on initial public offerings. He has published three books and more than sixty articles in academic and practitioner journals, books, and conference proceedings. Dr. Strader is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Drake Management Review, has served as Zimpleman College of Business Research Coordinator, and has twice won the Zimpleman College of Business faculty research award.
Timothy Urness
Professor of Computer Science
307 Collier-Scripps | 515-271-2118 | timothy.urness@drake.edu
Professor Urness is dedicated to computer science education and has been recognized as the Maddelyn M. Levitt Teacher of the Year in 2018. He has also been awarded the Outstanding Teacher of the Year in the College of Arts and Sciences. His research in computer graphics and scientific visualization is interdisciplinary in nature and has resulted in numerous publications. His collaborations include professors and students from Drake University’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, Department of Biology, Department of Chemistry, as well as Drake’s College of Business and Public Administration. Professor Urness earned a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Minnesota in 2006. Professor Urness teaches Introduction to Computer Science I, Computer Graphics, and courses on Cloud Computing and Database Systems.
Amy Grace Vaughan
Associate Professor of Statistics
308 Aliber Hall | 515-271-2807 | amy.vaughan@drake.edu
Dr. Vaughan has an MBA from Georgia Southern University and a Ph.D. and Master's in Statistics from the University of Georgia. She has published a number of interdisciplinary articles, and her research interests include applied data analysis, nonparametrics, structural equation modeling, and active learning in higher education. Dr. Vaughan has twice been recognized as the Outstanding Undergraduate Teacher of the Year in the Zimpleman College of Business. She teaches Statistics, regression, time series, and R programming.
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