Resoundingly Human

My guest for today's interview is Shima Mohebbi, with the Department of Systems Engineering and Operations Research at George Mason University who recently completed a collaborative   National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded study that explored how to improve community and infrastructure resiliency by better understanding and identifying the underlying dynamics and causal relationships to improve...

So today's interview is going to make – heck it already has made – a lot of folks in INFORMS hometown of Baltimore jealous, because I will be speaking to none other than the Baltimore Orioles assistant GM and head of analytics Sig Mejdal. With Baltimore's 2023 season opener literally on top of us, I am thrilled to sit down with Sig and talk about analytics at the Orioles, as well as his own profes...

We're in the countdown to the 2023 INFORMS Business Analytics Conference, in Aurora, CO, April 16-18, and this year's conference is particularly special for the INFORMS community as this was the site of our 2020 meeting … or it was supposed to be, but unfortunately the COVID-19 pandemic had other ideas. Now, here we are three years later and we've come full circle and I think I speak for many in t...

We're coming up on International Women's Day on March 8 and here at INFORMS we're excited to recognized and celebrate the incredible contributions of women in STEM! This year's theme is Embrace Equity, highlighting how embracing gender equity will help create an inclusive world. Joining me to explore the growing impact of women in the STEM fields, and share her own incredible work is Lauren Czerni...

Filmed in-person during the 2022 INFORMS Annual Meeting in Indianapolis last fall, in this episode I am joined by Thiago Serra, professor of analytics and operations management at Bucknell University, and Carol DeZwarte, data science leader at Shopify. We explore a topic that most in the field of analytics/OR/MS have or will face during their career, and all the questions and uncertainty that come...

At the time of this recording, we are well into this year's football playoffs with the Super Bowl now just a couple of weeks away. There are four teams still in the playoffs – Bengals, Chiefs, Eagles and 49ers – with the next round coming this weekend. I invited my previous guest Walt DeGrange, director of Analytics Capabilities at CANA, to take a look at the continually evolving role of analytics...

As we live in an increasingly internet-driven world, it should come as no surprise that online or cyberbullying is a problem of growing significance and impact, one that actually seems to have worsened during the pandemic. In 2022, nearly half of all teenagers experienced some form of online bullying or harassment. But what may be less well understood is beyond the mental and emotional impact, onl...

Welcome to a brand-new year of Resoundingly Human podcasts! Whether this is your first episode, or you are a long-time listener, thank you for joining us and I hope you'll subscribe for even more great content highlighting the incredible contributions of INFORMS members. To kick off our first episode of the new year, joining me is the 2023 INFORMS president Laura Albert, professor and department c...

As we near the end of the year, I'm once again joined by our 2022 INFORMS president Radhika Kulkarni to take a look back at the past year, her favorite moments and memories, what insight she gained, what she'll take with her, and finally, any special insight she might have for our incoming 2023 president.

This week's podcast is an incredible example of the power of O.R. and analytics to unite and empower people and communities across the globe, and I'm excited and honored to share this story with you! I'm joined by Andrew Wylie, a simulation consultant at Simul8 Corporation which develops simulation software to provide unique, evidence-based approaches to decision making, and William Taylor, head o...

Welcome back for another in a special series of the Resoundingly Human podcast, filmed and recorded in person in Indianapolis at the 2022 INFORMS Annual Meeting. I'm joined by Brian MacDonald at Yale University. He is a keynote presenter at this year's Annual Meeting, Sports Analytics , and he has kindly taken some time out of his busy meeting schedule to share special insight into, well, all thin...

Special series featuring in-person interviews from #INFORMS2022 in Indianapolis! I was delighted to be joined in person in Indianapolis at the 2022 INFORMS Annual Meeting by Prashant Yadav with INSEAD. He was a keynote presenter at this year's Annual Meeting, Global Health Security and Healthcare Supply Chains: Perspectives and Opportunities for Operations Research , and he kindly took some time o...

With just days to go before the INFORMS community gathers in Indianapolis for the 2022 INFORMS Annual Meeting, the first fully IN PERSON Annual Meeting since 2019, I am delighted to be joined once again by the 2022 INFORMS President Radhika Kulkarni. We'll take a look at this year's meeting, what's new and different this year and what we've missed about meeting face-to-face, as well as a quick upd...

Semiconductors. Everyone uses them, but how many of us really know what they are, what they do, and the increasingly important role they play in our modern world? Much like supply chains, artificial intelligence and other O.R. buzzwords that are making their way into the public conscious, semiconductor is a term that most of us have probably heard, but their actual significance might remain a bit...

It's the end of a long day, or maybe the start to a fun weekend … you lean back in your chair, hammock, front porch step, wherever, and crack open your favorite brew. Life. Is. Good. But have you ever thought why your favorite beer IS your favorite? Nowadays, chances are (especially if you are a millennial) you're drinking the product of one of nearly 10,000 craft breweries here in the U.S. and NO...

Operations research, analytics and data science can provide a wide range of solutions to many of the challenges facing organizations, from staffing to resource allotment to evaluating success and failure, if you have a business problem, O.R. and analytics can provide an effective, data-based solution. But making sure you are picking the correct solution, the right approach for your unique problem,...

Today's episode will be a little different than most, we're going to take a bit of a detour but stick with me and I promise, I'll bring us back around to data science. I'm going to take us back in time a little, back to the first time I watched what was to become my favorite movie, Jaws . It was the summer between 4th and 5th grade (probably way too young to be watching a movie about a killer shar...

We're just about halfway through the summer, and with many days of warm weather still ahead, most of us are planning fun outdoor activities or family adventures, or maybe just working toward our summertime fitness goals. But for some, ok many of us, staying active can be a struggle, not only to reach our fitness goals, but to stick to our good exercise habits in the long run. The use of wearable h...

There is not a single country in the world that is not touched by human trafficking. Let that sink in. The number of people victimized by human slavery across the globe is currently greater than the populations of London, New York and Los Angeles combined. This is not a problem affecting people on the other side of the world, it's one here at home, very likely in our own communities. One that will...

It's no secret that women are making great strides forward in the workplace. In major cities across the country, analysis shows that the gender pay gap is closing. The number of women in mathematics, science and other STEM occupations is continuing to grow as well. In addition, the number of women entrepreneurs has increased by 48% year over year. That means the number of women taking the jump to...

As the host of this podcast, I am in a unique position to hear first-hand from people who are having an incredible impact on the world in such an amazing variety of ways, which in my role, I then have the pleasure of sharing with our listeners. While each episode of the podcast communicates an important discovery or significant impact, it's seemed like a number of recent episodes, at least in my e...

Common sense. A highly valued trait among our peers, partners, friends, and honestly anyone we interact with on a regular basis. Difficult to define at best, common sense is a necessary component to decision-making, helping us navigate any number of choices we must make day to day, to presumably achieve the best outcomes. And while common sense is an inherently human trait, much like our emotions,...

For this episode, I am so pleased to once again be joined by the 2022 INFORMS President Radhika Kulkarni. We started 2022 off with my first interview with Radhika as president and discussed what was in store for INFORMS in the coming year. Radhika joins me once again to share some important INFORMS milestones and updates on a few of the topics we discussed earlier this year.

Wildlife conservation is an enormous global undertaking, vital to ensuring the health and longevity of our planet, and that the incredibly diverse plant and wildlife species we share our world with are here for generations more to come. A significant threat to conservation efforts is the poaching of wildlife, which can be difficult and even dangerous to combat and is pushing many species towards e...

End-stage renal disease, or ESRD, is a serious medical condition caused by failure of the kidneys that also has significant social and economic implications. The only treatments for end-stage renal disease are regular courses of dialysis or a kidney transplant. For individuals with ESRD who do not have access to treatment, either because they are uninsured or they may not be a legal residents of t...