He is an applied statistician and an econometrician by training. His research interests include studying the avenues and challenges posed by User Generated Content (UGC) on businesses. Specifically, he investigates the underlying processes/conditions that alter the influence level of UGC on final business outcomes. His research helps firms and institutional investors in understanding the value of UGC and finding out ways to better utilize UGC. He is also interested in investigating online reputation mechanism designs that shape both the generation and utilization of UGC. © 2012 The University of Utah