Yong Tan named Chang Jiang Scholar by Chinese Ministry of Education

Yong Tan, the Neal and Jan Dempsey Professor of Information Systems at the University of Washington Foster School of Business, has been named a Chang Jiang Scholar by the Chinese Ministry of Education and Hong Kong Li Ka Shing Foundation.

This academic award—one of the most prestigious in China—recognizes international researchers for their outstanding contributions in the disciplines of science, engineering, medicine and management. It also brings such eminent scholars to Chinese universities to conduct collaborative research.

Over the next three years, Tan will serve as chaired visiting professor at the School of Economics and Management at China’s elite Tsinghua University, though he will continue to be based and spend most of his time at the Foster School in Seattle.

Tan was also recently appointed senior editor of Information Systems Research, the flagship journal in his field of information systems management. This is in addition to his service on the board of editors of the Journal of Management Information Systems. He recently completed a nine-year stint as associate editor of Management Science.

Tan earned PhDs from the University of Washington in physics (1993) and information systems (2000). Since joining the Foster faculty full-time in 2000, Tan has won the Association of Information Systems Best Publication Award, the Evert McCabe Faculty Fellowship, the Neal and Jan Dempsey Faculty Fellowship, the Dean’s Faculty Research Award, the Lex N. Gamble Family Award and the PhD Program Mentoring Award, among others.

His current research examines online social networks, mobile commerce, big data, and digital content distribution channels.

Tan’s recent publications include findings that active online health communities improve a patient’s condition, that strategic social networking is key to web content popularity, and that online reviewers follow the crowd unless they listen to friends.