Michael T. Lash

Michael T. Lash

♦ Assistant Professor at the University of Kansas School of Busines ♦ Technology, Operations, and AI Consultant

Teaching

BSAN/IST 326: Database Management Systems

Undergraduate Course, University of Kansas School of Business, Semesters: Spring 2020 - Spring 2023

This undergraduate course, offered to business analytics and information systems students, covers the database development process. The class begins with an overview of databases and the benefits of adopting such an approach. We then work through the database development process, beginning with requirementa analysis. The second half of the class focuses on SQL, beginning with data definition language (DDL) commands to create the tables in a database system. We then cover data manipulation language (DML) commands to add data to the tables. The last month or so of class focuses specifically on the SELECT command to derive insights directly from a database. We also briefly cover data control language (DCL) commands. The class uses Oracle cloud-based database management software and freely available cloud-based diagramming software.

BSAN 995: Machine Learning Seminar

Graduate Course (PhD), University of Kansas School of Business, Semesters: Spring 2020, Spring 2023

This seminar introduces graduate students to the vast, exciting, and ever-growing research area of machine learning. Both historical and current research papers on the subject will be presented and discussed to cultivate a trajectory-based perspective of the field. Furthermore, the course adopts a “model-based machine learning” (C. Bishop) perspective and emphasis: the application should inform the selection and development of a particular machine learning model (i.e., is application-focused). Both supervised (learning from data with a target outcome) and unsupervised methods (learning from data without a definitive outcome) will be presented and discussed. The particular methods and applications covered are based on student interests, determined at the onset of the semester. The instructor introduces the field during the first few weeks of the semester, with instructor, guest, and student research paper presentations taking place thereafter. Student evaluation is based on paper presentations and a semester-long project.

BSAN 745: Advanced Machine Learning

Graduate Course, University of Kansas School of Business, Semesters: Spring 2021 - Spring 2023

This course takes a data-centric approach to machine learning, focusing on nontraditional data types, particularly text, networks/graphs, and images. These data types have become ubiquitous, invaluable sources of information and insight spanning the spectrum of industries and enterprise. It is therefore imperative that business analysts, data scientists, and machine learning practitioners have competency in not only dealing with these sources of data but in gleaning the treasure-trove of insights such data provide. This course equips students with the skills necessary to acquire, process, and learn from text, networks, and images, building on the foundations learned in the introduction to machine learning course (recommended, but not required). The primary emphasis in this course is text data; select lectures will be devoted to working with networks and images.