The Institute’s founding director, Dr. Michael Rappa, delivered the keynote address at the INFORMS Meeting of Analytics Program Directors in Houston, Texas. The meeting was held in conjunction with the INFORM Business Analytics Conference, a premiere annual event of analytics practitioners.
Dr. Rappa’s talk focused on charting the path forward for graduate education in data science and analytics, He made three recommendations for fellow program directors: (1) Build strong pipelines with undergraduate programs; (2) Prioritize quality over quantity of graduates; and (3) Adopt standards to measure student outcomes. Dr. Rappa originated the country’s first degree program in analytics in 2006, graduating the first cohort of two dozen students in 2008, and has since seen the field flourish to over 450 graduate programs and 30.000 degrees conferred annually, in the U.S. alone.
MAPD is a one of kind meeting where program directors have a unique opportunity to meet and discuss relevant trends, challenges, pain points, best (and worst) ways to run an analytics program. The meeting includes programs directors of undergraduate, masters and doctoral programs.