New Faculty: Dustin White

This fall, the UNO College of Business Administration welcomed nine new full-time faculty members — one of the largest classes in college history.

Although he's originally from Redmond, Washington, Dustin White has called several places home, including Utah and Brazil, where he became fluent in Portuguese.

White is busy teaching business analytics in the MBA program and working on several ongoing research projects.

"I study the impact of sporting events on health outcomes, the impact of working from home on wages, and why firms might share valuable intellectual property with their competitors," he says.

One of White's professional hobbies is data analytics, including topics such as neural networks, deep learning and machine learning. He is working to introduce data analysis more extensively in the college's Economics Department and hopes the UNO community will be able to leverage this technology to benefit students and the greater Omaha community.

Read on to learn more about Dr. White.

Why did you decide to become a professor?

My Econ 101 professor during my freshman year of college made me fall in love with economics. Ever since then, it has been my favorite topic to study and was my major as well as field of study in graduate school. I want to be able to help other people realize how much fun economics can be and to help UNO students love their econ classes!

What's your favorite thing about teaching/working with college students?

I think that the best part of working with college students is how many choices they have ahead of them. Because economics is all about choices and understanding how people make them, I think that economics can make a HUGE difference in their lives, whether or not they continue studying it after their first class. I love seeing college students realize how they can improve their own decisions by applying simple economic principles to their lives.

What do you like to do for fun?

I spend most of my free time playing with my kids. Lily is 3 years old, and Charlie is 16 months. We spend a lot of time acting like monsters, dancing for the gorillas at the zoo, and trying to chase down birds so we can sing to them like Disney princesses.