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Yang Sun--Associate Professor, Business Administration

Yang Sun

Sacramento is a long way from China, where Business Administration professor Yang Sun grew up and first attended college.  Inspired by his grandfather, who was the first computer science teacher in China, Sun came to the United States to pursue a higher education opportunity he couldn’t find in his homeland.

“We have better graduate programs here,” Sun says. “The Ph.D. training is more rigorous here than anywhere else in the world.”

Sun holds a bachelor’s degree in automotive engineering from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. He spent six years in Arizona State University’s graduate and post-graduate program and receive a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in industrial engineering. He also received a six-sigma black belt certificate from ASU, a program within statistics that seeks to continually improve business practices.

This is Sun’s first semester teaching a business class as an associate professor, rather than attending class as a student teacher or student.

“The first couple of months my students found class to be challenging,” Sun says. “I’ll be happy to see them grow through more rigorous training. Teaching is a learning improvement for me, too.”

In addition to teaching, Sun is also working on his own research that uses what he describes as “operational research analysis.” He creates computer programs that help businesses sort through specific decision-making processes. While it is an abstract idea, he hopes that some of his students will take interest in the statistical side of business that he deals with in his research.