The Institute’s spring semester speaker series kicks-off with special guests Roger Potter and Joseph Grillo, both of whom are analytics executives with Travelers Companies, Inc., in Hartford, Connecticut. Travelers is one of the largest providers of property and casualty insurance products in the United States with over 7.1 million personal insurance policies in force. Their talk centers on the application of advanced analytics in today’s insurance industry. The speaker series continues through April with invited guests from 17 companies.
Ladrie Appointed Academic Program Coordinator
We are delighted to announce the appointment of Laura Ladrie as the Institute’s new Academic Program Coordinator. Laura oversees day-to-day operation of the Master of Science in Analytics degree program, working closely with our students and faculty. Laura served as a member of the university task force that led to the creation of the Institute. Since 2006, she worked in a half-time capacity to coordinate MSA curriculum development and implementation during the first year of the program. Prior to joining the Institute full-time, Laura worked as an IT consultant with the NC State University Information Technology Division.
Spring Semester Classes Underway
Students in the Master of Science in Analytics began their spring semester with a packed schedule of classes in data and text mining, financial analytics, data visualization, and risk analytics. Students are continuing their work on the practicum projects, as well. The team projects will culminate in late April with each team delivering a presentation to the project sponsor. The spring schedule also includes a series of invited guest lectures.
Students Celebrate End of Fall semester
Students in the Master of Science in Analytics (MSA) celebrated the midpoint of their 10-month program of study with the successful completion of the fall semester today. Students gathered at a luncheon after their last exam before heading off for a one-month holiday recess. During the semester, students took courses taught by a team of faculty spanning several disciplines. Subjects covered included Time Series and Forecasting, Optimization, Data Security and Privacy, Text Analytics, Customer Analytics, Geospatial Data Analytics, Survival Analysis, and Data Mining.
Students Analyze Hybrid Electric Vehicles
Mahesh Pappu and Rajashekar Mareddy (MSA candidates, Class of 2008) are analyzing performance data on plug-in hybrid electric vehicles used by the City of Raleigh in conjunction with Centennial Campus-based Advanced Energy. The data are collected using on-board data loggers and off-board kilowatt hour meters during charging, and analyzed using JMP. The project is led by Advanced Energy’s Ewan Pritchard and Ken Dulaney.
Students Move to Venture 3
Today, the MSA program moved its operations from a temporary classroom in BTEC to the first floor in Venture 3. The new location includes a 24-seat classroom, work areas for student teams, an office for staff, and wireless networking and teleconferencing facilities. The lease extends to the end of the current academic year. The Institute’s head office remains in Venture 2. The process for locating space to occupy beyond June 2008 has begun. The new location will require classroom and workspace to accommodate significant growth in student enrollment over the next two years.
Students Attend SESUG Meeting
A large contingent of MSA students attended the SouthEast SAS User Group (SESUG) three-day annual conference in Hilton Head, South Carolina. The meeting, which had 350 attendees from across the southeast, provided a venue for over one-hundred presentations, tutorials and workshops on topics including applications development, data mining, statistics and data analysis, and programming.
Students Complete Professional Certification
With its emphasis on industry-standard tools, the MSA program gives students the opportunity to tangibly demonstrate their level of understanding through the completion of professional certifications in collaboration with SAS. Reena and Sofie (right) are two of the dozen MSA students who succeeded in completing SAS programmer certifications this fall. Most students have chosen the option of completing the SAS professional certifications as an adjunct to their MSA studies. SAS certifications are a widely sought credential among employers across industry today. It adds credibility to a job candidate’s proven ability to function with the latest software tools in solving analytical problems. The certification opportunity is a key feature of the MSA program that helps to reinforce the link between learning and doing. Students can take advantage of several SAS training courses to prepare for the certification exams, including certifications in base programming , advanced programming, data mining and predictive analytics.
Institute Signs Lease in Venture 3
The Institute for Advanced Analytics secured a short-term sublease on the first floor in Venture 3, which is adjacent to existing offices in the Venture 2 building on Centennial Campus. The present schedule is to occupy the new location by October 15. The lease will extend to the end of the current academic year pending approval by the NCSU Board of Trustees in September. Venture 3 will have a classroom, work areas for student teams, offices for staff, and wireless networking and teleconferencing facilities.
The Institute’s head office will remain in Venture 2.
Earp Speaks at Analytics Summit
Dr. Julie Earp participated on a panel discussion at the Business Analytics Concours Research Summit held September 25-27 at Babson College in Boston. The executive-level event featured Tom Davenport, author of Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning. Dr. Earp spoke about the Master of Science in Analytics. Dr. Earp specializes in data privacy and is the architect, along with Dr. Laurie Williams, of the Analytics Practicum.