Two professors from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock have been recognized as some of this year’s top academic data leaders in the U.S. and Canada.

Chief Data Officer Magazine announced Dr. John Talburt, professor of information science and Acxiom chair of information quality, and Dr. Richard Wang, founder and executive director of the Institute for Chief Data Officers at UA Little Rock and director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Chief Data Officer and Information Quality Program at MIT, as members of its 2021 List of Leading Academic Data Leaders.

“These outstanding academic professionals are leading the way with innovative ideas leveraging data and analytics,” Chief Data Officers (CDO) Magazine stated. “They are using their talents to provide true value and real world results. We are proud to highlight their accomplishments and want to be a catalyst to advance opportunities in the data and analytic field.”

Talburt has been instrumental in building the Information Quality Graduate Program at UA Little Rock. The program includes the graduate certificate in information quality, the M.S. in information quality, and the Ph.D. in integrated computing with an emphasis in information quality. He serves as the coordinator for Information Quality Graduate Programs and is the primary advisor for information quality graduate students. 

“It was a great honor for me to be listed along with so many other highly esteemed members of the academic community,” Talburt said. “My hope is I can enrich the education and training of the students in our Information Quality Graduate Program through the practical experience I have gained in working with Chief Data Officers and other data leaders in government and industry.”

Wang is a pioneer and leader in the research and practice of chief data officers and has put the term information quality on the intellectual map with myriad publications. He has been instrumental in the establishment of the Ph.D. and Master of Science in information quality degree programs at UA Little Rock, serving as a visiting professor of information quality from 2005 to 2009 at UA Little Rock.

In 2016, he founded the Institute for Chief Data Officers at UA Little Rock. With the establishment of this institute, Wang is taking the CDO education to an unprecedented level of excellence and competency and has recently launched the first online fundamental course for chief data officers in the world.

“It was a privilege to pioneer the Chief Data Officer field,” Wang said. “With the unreserved support from Dean Lawrence Whitman and Dr. Liz Pierce, I have launched the first online CDO Fundamental course in the world. My hope is to leverage this new online CDO course to recruit industry practitioners around the world to be admitted to the UA Little Rock’s MSIQ/GC graduate program, to increase the visibility and reputation of UA Little Rock, and overtime increase enrollment.”