The IS Department is pleased to give a UNT Mean Green welcome to two new faculty members this semester:

Dr. Junhua Ding is a Professor in the Department of Information Science. Before joining UNT, he was an Associate Professor in the department of Computer Science at East Carolina University (ECU) where he had been a faculty member since 2007. He was a senior engineer with Johnson & Johnson from 2006 to 2007, and was a software engineer with Beckman Coulter from 2000 to 2006. Dr. Ding completed his Ph.D. in Computer Science at Florida International University, his Master's degree at Nanjing University, and his undergraduate studies at China University of Geosciences. Before he went to college, he had studied Geochemistry at Nanjing School of Geology from 1986 to 1990.

Dr. Ding's current research interests lie in the area of data science, ranging from theory, to design, to implementation. He has actively collaborated with researchers in other disciplines, particularly computer science, biomedical physics, and biomedical engineering. He was named as ECU Scholar Teacher in 2014, and University Scholar in 2017. Dr. Ding has served on more than 30 conference and workshop program committees, and served as the Program Chairs for ACM/IEEE Workshop on Automated Software Testing 2017, IEEE workshop on Big Data Quality 2017, and IEEE workshop on Combinatorial Testing and Applications 2017 and 2018. He has published more than 80 peer reviewed research papers in data science and software engineering. He will teach Data Visualization and Communication for graduate and undergraduate students this Fall. His teaching interests are in Data Analytics, Machine Learning, and Information Security. Junhua lives with his wife and their two daughters. He enjoys reading books, good food, beer, and wine.                                                                                                                    

Dr. Tricia Kuon comes to the department to teach Practicum, Collection Development, and Youth Literature in the School Librarian certification program.  She has previously taught at the elementary school level, been a middle and elementary school librarian, and has taught at the college level.  Tricia has also worked as a presenter for the Bureau of Education and Research (BER) where she speaks to librarians across the US and Canada about library innovation and makerspaces.  In her spare time, Tricia likes to read, bake, play golf, travel, and spend time with her family, which includes a husband and five children. 

She is currently writing a book titled Creating the WOW! Factor: Innovations for the School Library and a children's book with her teaching assistant to be titled: Don't Pet Armadillos: What you Don't Know Could Hurt You.

Published September 5, 2018.