Yang is an Assistant Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations. Yang holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Notre Dame. He was a Research Assistant Professor at Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO) and Kellogg School of Management. His principal research interest lies in the areas of data mining/machine learning, computational social science and science of science. Yang is interested in studying how social networks affect individuals’ success. Specifically, he has studied the link between social network and leadership attainment. He also focuses on research in the context of science and innovation. He studies the effect of team composition on performance and innovation, as well as the role of media and social media in shaping public access to science. His work has been published in journals and conference proceedings, such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, KDD, ICDM, WWW and Knowledge and Information Systems. His papers have been mentioned by Forbes, Fortune, The Washington Post, BBC, Psychology Today, The Hill, WIRED, and Harvard Business Review.