Penn State Smeal College of Business
Business Building
475 Shortlidge Rd
University Park, PA 16802

Assistant Professor
Keran Zhao is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Supply Chain and Information Systems at the Smeal College of Business, Pennsylvania State University. Prior to joining the Smeal College of Business, he was an Assistant Professor at the Bauer College of Business, University of Houston. Dr. Zhao's research interests lie in the area of digital platform design and artificial intelligence. His research investigates the design and user behavior of online live streaming and healthcare communities, using machine/deep learning and econometrics approaches.
Live Streaming, Artificial Intelligence, Design of Digital Platforms, Blockchain and NFT, Healthcare Informatics
Ph.D. in Management of Information Systems, University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Business Administration, Chicago, Illinois, USA, 2021-08-08 Master in Information Science, University of Pittsburgh, School of Computing and Information, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, 2016-05-24 Bachelor of Information Management and Information Systems, Donghua University, School of Business and Management, Shanghai, China, 2014-01-01
MIS 441 – Bus Intelligence
Application of Information Technology based methods and tools to analyze business data and support decision making. MIS 441 Business Intelligence for Decision Making (3) Business intelligence encompasses the IT tools for exploring, analyzing, integrating, and reporting business data for fact-based, intelligent decision making. This course primarily investigates methods and tools for exploring and analyzing large amounts of business data also called "Big Data." Learning methods emphasize active learning in the application of methods and tools to real data and the presentation of the results. Students will be exposed to a variety of methods for analyzing both structured and unstructured data and they will work with business data sets to understand the value that can be extracted from large data sets. They will also learn how to classify and associate data to discover business rules that can be used to support decision making. The course will also cover methods to analyze social media information and about tools that can facilitate such analysis and discovery. Again they will get a chance to work with data from real social networks to gain an appreciation of how value can be obtained from such networks. Finally, they will learn about techniques for visualizing, presenting and communicating information in a useful way, e.g. through dashboards and with other technologies on various platforms.
SCM 496 – Indep Studies
Creative projects, including research and design, that are supervised on an individual basis and that fall outside the scope of formal courses.
Malhotra P., Ringel D., Zhao K., Cui Y. "Leveraging Information Networks for Marketing Brand Alliance Discovery: A Data-Driven Framework for Actionable Insights" Information Systems Research, vol. Forthcoming, 2026-06-01
Sanatizadeh A., Lu Y., Zhao K., Hu Y. "Engagement or entanglement? The dual impact of generative artificial intelligence in online knowledge exchange platforms" Information & Management, vol. 62, 2025-09-01
Zhao K., Hong Y., Ma T., Lu Y., Hu Y. "Lost in the Crowd: How Group Size and Content Moderation Shape User Engagement in Live Streaming" Information System Research, vol. 36, 2025-01-01
Zhao K., Lu Y., Hu Y., Hong Y. "Direct and Indirect Spillovers from Content Providers’ Switching: Evidence from Online Livestreaming" Information Systems Research, vol. 34, 2023-08-01
Qu Z., Zhao K., Jin J., Qu E., Lai Z. "A Novel Method Enables General Pathologists to Create Web Dynamic Forms for Synoptic Tumor Reporting" Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, vol. 145, 2021-07-01
Zhao K., Hu Y., Hong Y., Westland C. "Understanding Characteristics of Popular Streamers on Live Streaming Platforms: Evidence from Twitch.tv" Journal of the Association for Information Systems, vol. 22, 2021-01-01