WKU News

Using data mining tools such as Tableau and RapidMiner, Accounting and Business Data Analytics major Morgan Hayes is helping Lending Club better accomplish its mission of making borrowing money less expensive and making investment more engaging. In a research project that has spanned more than a year, she determined a borrower is more likely to be rejected for a loan if they have been employed less than a year and the amount of the loan increases as annual income increases. These findings will help the company better format its application process to better fit both the applicant as well as the investor.

Hayes will present this research at the 2020 INFORMS Business Analytics Conference April 26-28 in Denver, Colo., where she will join more than 1,000 leading professionals in the data analytics field.

“I am delighted to be able to present my research study and to have the opportunity to network with other scholars within the field of data analytics,” she said. “They will have speakers in several areas of analytics presenting during the conference. I aim to listen and learn from them and their experiences in the field.”

Hayes says she hopes that the conference will provide her with advice on furthering this research project and gather new findings.

“This research provided me with invaluable hands-on experience working with perhaps the most critical data analytics project I have ever done, so far, during my education at WKU,” she said. “Being familiar with analytics is vital to my future career in accounting.”

She credits her professor, Dr. Lily Popova Zhuhadar, with challenging her to take on this project and helped Hayes apply for a Faculty-Undergraduate Student Engagement (FUSE) Grant.

“She is always willing to help me learn new ways to approach research questions with different models or with various programs,” she said. “I have learned so much from over the last couple of years that has helped me grow as a student as the researcher that I am today.”