Resoundingly Human

This episode is one of a special series recorded during the 2019 INFORMS Annual Meeting in Seattle. Joining me is Andy Philpott from the University of Auckland to discuss the topic of his keynote session from this year’s Meeting, "Zero Carbon Analytics," which explored how analytics is being used to plan the transition to a world with net-zero carbon emissions to help combat climate change from global warming.

This episode is one of a special series recorded during the 2019 INFORMS Annual Meeting in Seattle. Joining me is Kamalini Ramdas from the London Business School, to discuss the topic of her keynote session which explored how to use business model innovation to address chronic worldwide issues like poverty and inequity. In particular, we discuss an innovative and unexpected new approach to providing healthcare to patients in impoverished communities suffering from chronic illnesses.

This episode is one of a special series recorded during the 2019 INFORMS Annual Meeting in Seattle. Joining me is Heidi Livingston Eisips from San Jose State University. She chaired a session at the 2019 Annual Meeting, “Debiasing Decision Making – Ethical Data Mining and Eliminating Algorithmic Bias,” that explored how to balance the benefits of data mining and data analytics in modern society while creating and sustaining a legal and ethical framework to prevent bias.

Chatbots are currently utilized by many well-known companies to support a number of tasks including taking orders, providing recommendations, and customer service. But what do customers really think of chatbots, and how do they compare to their human counterparts? Joining me for this episode to provide some insight into the impact of chatbot technology is Xueming Luo of Temple University.

In academia, a growing number of PhD graduates are competing for a limited number of academic positions, and with tenured professors often retiring later, the competition for these positions continues to increase. Joining me for this episode to take a deeper dive into this topic is Richard Larson, post-tenure professor in the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology.

Organizations around the world, big and small, in nearly every industry, are implementing operations research and analytics to improve their business operations. But how can an organization tell how well it is using O.R. and analytics? With the INFORMS Analytics Maturity Model! Joining me to help tackle this topic is Norman Reitter, chief analytics officer and senior VP of Analytics Operations at CANA Advisors and chair of the INFORMS Analytics Capability Evaluation Subcommittee.

Online retailers like Amazon deliver nearly everything we could possibly need or want, often within a day or two of ordering it. But what happens if access to expedited shipping were to suddenly and unexpectedly stop? Well for one online retail platform it did. To provide more insight on what happened, what the fallout was, and what other online retail platforms can learn from this event, I am joined by Ruomeng Cui, professor at Emory University.

Smart city technology is bringing some once unimaginable concepts to life. It is having an increasing impact our daily lives in ways both big and small, while also helping to tackle some of the biggest issues faced in America’s cities. for this episode, I am joined by Ramayya Krishnan, INFORMS President and professor and dean of the Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University.

New research shows that, despite significant new advancements in treatments for type II diabetes, this has not translated to better health for those patients. In fact, fewer than 1 in 4 Americans with type II diabetes have achieved the American Diabetes Association's recommended care targets ... no better than 15 years ago. Joining me for this episode is Pooyan Kazemian, instructor in medicine at Harvard University Medical School and a research scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital.

From hurricanes and earthquakes, to conflict and disease, these disasters, both man-made and natural, can have a devastating impact to the affected populations while causing millions, and even billions in damages. But how can we prepare for or respond to events that often can’t be predicted, nor their true impact estimated? Joining me is Pinar Keskinocak, the 2019 INFORMS President-elect and professor with Georgia Tech, to discuss how operations research and analytics can help.