Hello everyone — students, alumni, partners and friends of the IAA — and welcome to the October edition of Bill’s Bytes.

Since opening its doors, the Institute for Advanced Analytics (IAA) has taken pride in preparing students for the immediate demands of the data science industry. However, with technological change accelerating at an unprecedented rate, staying ahead of the curve requires going beyond the conventional cutting edge.

Since late August, with support from an NC State University Foundation grant, we have brought bleeding-edge skills and technology directly into the classroom through our newly launched Advanced Analytics Seminar. Now a core required course, this major curricular innovation delivers vital, forward-looking content to our students while keeping our broader alumni community actively engaged.

A Dynamic Lineup of Voices

To deliver maximum value, the seminar draws on a rich blend of perspectives from across the data science ecosystem, featuring highlights such as:

• Professors from Outside the Institute: Bringing fresh academic insights, Roger Mayer, Professor of Leadership at NC State’s Poole College of Management, kicked off the series with a timely discussion on building organizational trust in AI.
• Our Own IAA Faculty: Internal experts share advanced methodologies, including Professor Susan Simmons’ recent deep dive into Bayesian methods.
• Alumni Industry Leaders: Alumni practitioners bring real-world experience back to campus, such as David Chou ‘18 and Stephen Kimel ‘17 from Red Hat, who presented on causal reasoning with AI agents.
• The Director’s Talk: I also joined the stage to address the evolving landscape of data science in the generative AI era and to introduce double machine learning for establishing causality in observational data.

A special thank you goes to Professor Sarah Egan Warren, whose exceptional leadership in curating and running this world-class speaker series brought this ambitious vision to life.

Lifelong Learning for Our Alumni

This required course for students also serves our broader mission of lifelong learning by keeping our alumni connected to emerging industry trends.

Recordings of all seminar sessions are available exclusively to alumni, free of charge. If you need assistance accessing the archive, please contact Val Schwartz for details.

I hope you take advantage of these recordings to see the bleeding-edge topics we are exploring. Until next month, stay curious!