2015 QPRC

Title: Analytics: A Quick Guide

Abstract: The seemingly sudden rise of analytics and big data surely has left statisticians and other data quality/productivity professionals wondering what’s all the fuss, and indeed whether it's anything new or just another marketing fad. This invited talk will discuss the importance of analytics, placing it in the broader context of how our organizational reality is rapidly evolving with respect to data, and explain how, indeed, things are rapidly changing (for better or worse). 

Speaker Bio: Michael Rappa is the founding director of the Institute for Advanced Analytics and a member of the faculty in the Department of Computer Science at North Carolina State University. As head of the Institute, he leads the nation’s first Master of Science in Analytics as its principal architect. Before joining NC State as Distinguished University Professor in 1998, for nine years he was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Appointed the inaugural Goodnight Director of the Institute in 2015, his current position is endowed and named in honor of the University’s distinguished alumnus and prominent American business leader Dr. James Goodnight. Dr. Rappa has over 25 years of experience working across academic disciplines at the nexus between management and computing. An accomplished researcher and instructor, his passion is to bring an entrepreneurial and forward-thinking mindset to innovation in higher learning. His current role is to prepare a new generation of data savvy professionals for leadership in a digital world.