Dr. David Enke, professor of engineering management and systems engineering, has been named Curators’ Distinguished Teaching Professor. 

The Curators’ Distinguished Teaching Professorship was established at S&T in 1990 to honor outstanding professors, call attention to teaching excellence, and foster improvements in teaching and learning. Enke teaches courses in intelligent investing, advanced financial management, investment, financial engineering and financial risk management.

The founder and current director of the Laboratory for Investment and Financial Engineering at S&T and a member of the Intelligent Systems Center, Enke is an editor in the area of risk management for the journal The Engineering Economist. His research interests include investment, portfolio management, financial risk management, derivatives, and financial engineering, as well as the use of computational intelligence and machine learning for price and volatility forecasting. 

Enke’s current research involves using artificial neural networks and machine learning in the areas of finance and investment to better understand how to maximize asset returns while managing financial risk and portfolio volatility. Enke’s research has also involved estimating the direct and indirect economic loss from earthquake damaged roads and bridges based on the event severity.

“I am honored to be named a Curators’ Distinguished Teaching Professor,” Enke says. “While I continue to enjoy doing research, I have always felt it was important to be a teacher-scholar, taking what is learned through research and bringing it into the classroom. We are fortunate at Missouri S&T to have talented students and colleagues who not only thirst for new knowledge, but also challenge us each day to be better teachers and scholars.”

Enke joined the S&T faculty as an assistant professor of engineering management and systems engineering in 2000. He was promoted to associate professor in 2006 then left S&T in 2007 to serve as associate professor of finance and then chair of finance and operations management at the University of Tulsa. He returned to S&T in 2012 as chair and professor of engineering management and systems engineering, and held the chair title until July 2015. 

Before joining S&T, Enke held faculty positions in industrial and manufacturing systems engineering at the University of Michigan-Dearborn and in system science and industrial engineering at Binghamton University-State University of New York. Prior to that, he worked in quality control for McDonnell Douglas Corp.

During his tenure at S&T, Enke has been honored with an award for best journal article from the Engineering Management Journal, received multiple conference paper awards and has received campus awards for excellence in teaching. He has published over 30 journal articles, three book chapters and numerous conference proceedings and co-edited five editions of “Intelligent Engineering Systems Through Artificial Neural Networks.”

Enke earned a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from Missouri S&T in 1990. He earned master of science and Ph.D. degrees in engineering management from S&T in 1994 and 1997, respectively.