U.S. News and World Report’s guide to the best careers published this month lists data miner as one of a dozen “ahead of the curve” careers for 2009:

Data mining is a great career for people who would enjoy using statistics to unearth patterns in data, using ever more powerful software. Opportunities are particularly good if you also have business sense and the ability to tease out the information that bosses really want to know.

The impact of the recent economic downturn on data mining jobs appears to be limited. CareerBuilder.com, the U.S.’s largest online job site, has over 800 data mining related jobs—and nearly 1400 jobs in analytics—listed in the past 30 days. Although salaries for data mining analysts vary with education and experience, annual base pay for new recruits is frequently in the range of $80,000.

The Institute is pleased to announce a newly established Industry Advisory Board (IAB) to provide guidance on the MSA curriculum. The IAB is composed of sixteen companies that represent a variety of industry segments from across the country. The first meeting of the IAB is scheduled for February on NC State’s Centennial Campus. Participating companies include:

• Alltel Wireless (Little Rock AR)
• A.T. Kearney (Chicago IL)
• Blue Cross Blue Shield of NC (Chapel Hill NC)
• Deluxe (Shoreview MN)
• Detica (Arlington VA)
• Hallmark Cards (Kansas City MO)
• IBM (Armonk NY)
• Lowe’s Home Improvement (Mooresville NC)
• NetJets (Columbus OH)
• Red F Marketing (Charlotte NC)
• SAS (Cary NC)
• State Farm (Champaign IL)
• Travelers (Hartford CT)
• Travelocity (Southlake TX)
• Wachovia (Charlotte NC)
• Waterstone Analytics (Chicago IL)

As most students are leaving campus for winter break, MSA students are gearing up to complete an intensive communication boot camp designed by professional industry trainer Bart Queen of C3 Communications. Employers want most to hire recruits with stronger communications skills. The MSA program addresses this need head-on with 30 hours of communications training over three days of the winter break. Students are divided into groups of a dozen to complete the rigorous curriculum. The program continues into the spring semester with additional practice sessions and a final hour-long presentation by each student. In addition to presentation skills, students receive tutoring on interview skills. The training program is a key feature of the MSA program and distinguishes our graduates from those in traditional M.S. programs.

Jack Shostak, associate director of statistical programming at the Duke Clinical Research Institute (or DCRI—part of Duke University), spoke with MSA students about the analytical challenges of working with clinical data. Shostak is author of SAS Programming in the Pharmaceutical Industry (SAS Press, 2005) and co-author (with Glenn Walker) of the forthcoming 3rd edition of Common Statistical Methods for Clinical Research with SAS Examples.

Laura Ladrie and John Jernigan delivered a presentation today on the Institute’s use of various web-based student services (calendar, forum, email, etc.) to a standing room only audience at UNC Cause held November 17-19 in Greensboro. The purpose of the conference is to promote cooperation, information exchange and the leveraging of IT among the 16 campuses of the UNC System. The topic of the talk is a timely one. The UNC System administration is working diligently to consolidate services, reduce operating costs and deliver high quality service to its students. The reliance on web-based services enables the Institute to be flexible, fast and cost-effective in the deployment of its innovative curriculum.

John Correllus, director of business intelligence for the North Carolina Department of Commerce, spoke with MSA students today about the department’s Economic Development Intelligence System (EDIS) online database. Using EDIS, individuals can access reporting and mapping tools that are deployed through SAS’s BI platform. The use of geographic information in conjunction with analytical techniques has been an ongoing area of study for MSA students under the instruction of Dr. Hugh Devine. In the session students were shown a practical application of analytics for economic development along with the integration of mapping tools. Students discussed the reports and maps that can geographically display information such as demographics, consumer expenditures and income.

With the opening today of its new facility in the Venture 2 building, the Institute has consolidated its operations in a single location on Centennial Campus. The new space occupies 8,000 square feet of the building’s top floor and includes a classroom, student work areas, teleconference rooms, and offices for faculty and staff—with ubiquitous, secure wireless Internet access. Situated in the heart of the five-building Venture complex, Venture 2 offers much needed accommodations to operate the Master of Science in Analytics degree program and its current cohort of 35 students. Located in Suite 530, the Institute is neighbored on the fifth floor with NC State’s DELTA unit. Special thanks to the Institute’s associate director, Kathy Green, who led the effort to design and furnish the new facility. UPDATE: An open house for friends of the Institute is scheduled for 12:00-2:00 PM on Friday, December 5.

The Analytics Practicum is a team-based component of the MSA curriculum that gives students an opportunity to work together on real-world projects sponsored by industry. The Institute is pleased to announce our project sponsors for 2008-09 include:

• Detica — a global business and technology consultancy with over 1,500 employees based in the UK, with US operations in Washington, DC, and wholly owned by BAE Systems plc.
• Hallmark — a privately held greetings card company based in Kansas City, Missouri, with revenues of $4.4 billion and 16,000 employees worldwide.
• IBM — the global leader in computer systems and services with $98.8 billion in revenue and 386,000 employees worldwide.
• NetJets — the worldwide leader in Private aviation is a Berkshire Hathaway company and has operations based in Columbus Ohio.
• Travelers — a Fortune 100 insurance company with 2007 revenues of approximately $26 billion and more than 33,000 employees.
• Travelocity — a subsidiary of Sabre Holdings, based in Southlake, Texas, is one of the world’s largest travel companies with gross bookings of $10 billion.
• Wachovia — based in Charlotte, North Carolina, is one of the nation’s largest diversified financial services.

The practicum runs throughout the fall and spring semesters and serves as an integrative Read the rest of this entry »

A special feature of the MSA program is the option for students to gain valuable professional certifications in parallel with their degree. Such certifications include SAS (Base Programming, Advanced Programming, and Predictive Modeling), Six Sigma (Green Belt), and communication skills from industry trainer, C3 Communications. Individuals with professional certifications are highly sought after by employers. In the first three months of the program, 95% of the MSA Class of 2009 have passed one or more SAS programming certifications. Another 80% of the class is working toward becoming Green Belts using JMP. Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. Rada Chirkova begins teaching a new module on data cleaning techniques for the MSA program this month. Data cleaning is a critical function in most analytics projects, yet seldom the topic is seldom addressed directly in academic programs. In preparation for her module, Dr. Chirkova attended a two-day seminar taught by Dr. Ron Cody, an expert on the subject. Dr. Cody is a retired professor from the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School who now works as a private consultant and a national instructor for SAS Institute. Cody is author of numerous books, including Cody’s Data Cleaning Techniques Using SAS Software, as well as countless articles in medical and scientific journals.

The Institute is pleased to announce that David Dobson (MSA Class of 2008) has been selected as one of the winners of the student poster contest of the M2008 Data Mining Conference for his paper entitled “Segmenting Textual Data: Analyzing Questions on Auto Insurance Claims.” David will attend the conference in Las Vegas later this month to accept the prize. Dobson is currently a member of the faculty at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Vancouver. Congratulations, David, on the well-deserved recognition of his work!

Dr. Sudipta Dasmohapatra is our latest addition to the Institute’s faculty to teach during the 2008-09 academic year. Dr. “D.” joined the NC State in 2007 as an assistant professor in Wood and Paper Science. She received her Ph.D. in 2004 in Forest Products Marketing from The Pennsylvania State University. After graduating from Penn State, she worked as a Senior Quantitative Analyst at Yankelovich, Inc. for 3 years. Her interests are in the area of strategic marketing, distribution and value addition strategies and marketing research methods. She teaches a module in Market Science and Customer Analytics.

Fall semester classes for MSA students begin today with Dr. David Dickey teaching Time Series and Forecasting, and lectures by Dr. Hugh Devine in Geospatial Data Analytics. Students also have coursework in Six Sigma organized by Marissa Langford. Later in the semester, students will complete course modules in Data Cleaning with Dr. Rada Chirkova; Survival Analysis with Dr. Simon Hsiang; Market Science and Customer Analytics with Dr. Sudipta Dasmohapatra; and Logistic Regression Models with Dr. Fikret Isik. The fall semester also includes two modules on data mining, Data Mining I with Dr. Hsiang followed by Data Mining II with Dr. Chirkova.

John Jernigan is the Institute’s newly appointed Information Technology Coordinator. John joined the Institute at its inception in 2006 as a graduate assistant and had worked previously for Dr. Rappa in the Open Courseware Laboratory. John earned his B.S. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from NC State in 2006, and is currently completing his M.S. degree in the same field. In his new role, John provides support for all aspects of student and staff IT requirements.

The MSA Class of 2009 marked the successful completion of summer classes today with a luncheon celebration at nearby Lake Wheeler. Students were joined by faculty and staff for a catered lunch at the lakeside facility. Lunch was preceded by a preview of the fall semester by Dr. Rappa. Congratulations to all of the students who dedicated themselves to six weeks of intensive classes since early July. Special thanks go to the cadre of 20 lecturers who participated in this year’s summer “boot camp” program, and to our academic coordinator, Laura Ladrie, for pulling it together.