OL Reign Legend: Luna Zhang, Founder – Mentor, Researcher and Professor at the University of Washington

The Legends Campaign, a partnership between OL Reign and Starbucks, honors women for their extraordinary contributions to our community in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. Prior to OL Reign’s match against the Houston Dash on May 6th, OL Reign recognized Luna Zhang, Founder, mentor, researcher and professor at the University of Washington

Though she is early in her career as a professor, Dr. Zhang is a mentor to many and makes an immediate impact on many of her students by sharing her expertise, but also being a compassionate leader and mentor.

As a researcher, Dr. Zhang has studied Consumer Behavior, Mobile Commerce, Platform Economy, Revenue Sharing, Business Analytics, Large Scale Data Analysis, and Information Systems and Operations Management Interface. For her outstanding work, she won the Best Paper award at the Conference on Information Systems & Technology 2021.

She teaches various topics in analytics and operations management for undergraduate, Master of Sciences in business analytics (MSBA), and MBA programs. She has led the Analytics Innovation (A.I.) student club as a faculty advisor to winning the 2020 INFORMS Student Chapter Annual Award, Cum Laude and also received the 2020 Student's Choice Voting: Outstanding Faculty Award at the University of Washington Tacoma.

Dr. Zhang grew up in Chengdu in the southwest part of China and moved about 1,000 miles away to Shanghai for college when she was 17. After a bit of indecisiveness, Dr. Zhang settled on Supply chain management as her major.

“In the early 2000’s, online shopping was really starting to boom, and logistics management was a hot topic. You had to develop a very solid foundation for logistics, so I switched my major to supply chain management for not only my undergrad, but my master’s degree as well,” said Dr. Zhang.

In the process of earning her master’s degree, Dr. Zhang met one of the most important mentors in her life – her academic advisor, Dr. Jiazhen Huo at Tongji University. He was the one who suggested that Dr. Zhang should pursue a PhD, spurring Dr. Zhang’s move to Pennsylvania.

“While I was doing my PhD, the information systems were changing so quickly. I kind of chose to focus on the interdisciplinary area between supply chain management and information systems. There are a lot of things you can think about that are innovative with wonderful logistics management and ways to enhance the online shopping experience, and that’s sort of what inspired me to do so.” At Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, Dr. Zhang met another important mentor, her PhD advisor, Dr. Oliver Yao, whose mentorship has not only shaped her research and academic pursuits but has also instilled in her a passion for teaching and a commitment to becoming an effective educator.

For Dr. Zhang, being honored as an OL Reign and Starbucks Legend is one of the most rewarding moments of her career and it was made even more special by the involvement of her former student, Madilyn Pawlowski, OL Reign’s Corporate Partnership Activation Coordinator.

“This is so rewarding in a sense that I was not aware that I could make such a huge impact on a student’s career and achievement,” said Dr. Zhang. I’m so proud of Madi and where she is at right now and having her involved in this honor makes it feel extra rewarding.”

“I think Professor Luna exemplifies what it means to be a Legend by taking her responsibilities as a teacher, mentor and academic leader to heart. She recognizes that each student has different needs and provides that flexibility when creating her courses,” said Pawlowski.

“I felt firsthand, the joy and thoughtfulness she brought to each class, and it was refreshing to experience that in a year of digital education in 2020. She is an inspiration not only to her students, but to the whole academic community. She is wholly deserving of this honor from OL Reign.”

Other than being honored as an OL Reign Legend, Dr. Zhang has been honored by the University of Washington, Tacoma, not only for her excellence in teaching, but also her excellence in research. As someone who only graduated with her PhD five years ago and worked the beginning years of her career in the pandemic, these honors are also immeasurably encouraging for Dr. Zhang.

“There are so many excellent teachers and researchers around me, so I really just feel so honored to get this award. It really encourages me to work harder and go further and push the boundaries of myself to achieve bigger goals.”

Dr. Zhang continued, “I actually have two pieces of advice for young women pursuing their goals. The first, is that it is very important to find a sense of achievement in the small things. I am very grateful for each and every person that has supported me along the way, so I try to feel very accomplished for each little step that I have made. There are so many challenges and difficulties that you can face, but feeling achievement in some sense can really build your confidence and emotionally support you to go further.”

For her second piece of advice, Dr. Zhang used her experience as a researcher to reflect. She started her PhD program in 2013 but did not publish her first paper in an academic journal until 2019. It would have been easy for Dr. Zhang to feel discouraged, but she persevered, and it paid off.

“I know that this sounds so cliché, but don’t give up. Sometimes many people, including me, feel like they aren’t making progress, but sometimes things just need time and patience. Do not give up. Eventually, the good things will happen to you. Even after I published my first paper, it took another few years to publish my second. Be sure to fully enjoy the moments through the challenges and difficulties.”

To conclude, Dr. Zhang reiterated how grateful she is to be an OL Reign Legend.

“This is very rewarding, especially because my former student is involved. OL Reign is such an awesome organization and community, I’m really grateful that my small contributions so far are being recognized by such an awesome community.”

She continued, “I wouldn’t say that I’m the most inspiring person, but I hope that people can see the positivity that I try to give out, including this community and my students. I just hope that everyone stays positive and knows that anything is possible and all of the difficulties can be overcome with patience and hard work.”