Dean Abbott is President of Abbott Analytics and currently is the Bodily Bicentennial Professor in Analytics at UVA Darden School of Business. He is an internationally recognized thought leader and innovator in data science and predictive analytics with more than three decades of experience solving a wide range of private and public sector problems. Mr. Abbott is the author of Applied Predictive Analytics (Wiley, 2014) and coauthor of The IBM SPSS Modeler Cookbook (Packt Publishing, 2013).

Ashish manages Events recommendations and trends at Twitch. He uses AI/ML to generate insights from vast amounts of data and build interesting B2C, B2B and enterprise products. He has over 20 years of experience in technology ranging from founding startups to large companies. He has an MBA in marketing from Kellogg School of Management and a B.Tech from IIT BHU, India.

Leslie Barrett is a Senior Software Engineer at Bloomberg LP's Bloomberg Law division specializing in NLP and Machine Learning applied to legal and government text. Before Bloomberg she was Director of Search Technology at The Ladders Inc, an online resource for executive jobseekers and recruiters. Previously, she was Director of Language Technology at the Financial Times where she managed groups creating new online news search products and electronic news alerts. Leslie holds Ph.D. in Computational Linguistics from New York University. She has over 20 published papers in the fields of Natural Language Processing and Information Retrieval and holds 2 patents. She serves on the Program Committees for the International Conference on Computational Linguistics and Intelligent Text Processing and the International Workshop on Big Data for Financial News.

Yoram Bauman, “the world’s first and only stand-up economist”, performs regularly at colleges and corporate events, sharing the stage with everyone from the late Robin Williams to Paul Krugman. He has appeared in TIME Magazine and on PBS and NPR, and is the co-author of the Cartoon Introduction to Climate Change and the two-volume Cartoon Introduction to Economics, which is now available in Mandarin, Mongolian, and a dozen other languages. Speaking of foreign languages, he is also the organizer of the humor session at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association.

Yoram now lives in Salt Lake City but spent the prior two decades in Seattle, where he was the founder of Carbon Washington, which in 2016 placed the first-ever carbon tax measure on the ballot in the United States. He has a BA in mathematics from Reed College and a PhD in economics from the University of Washington. His goals in life are to spread joy to the world through economics comedy; to reform economics education; and to implement carbon pricing.

Zank Bennett is the CEO and founder of Bennett Data Science, a boutique firm based out of sunny San Diego. Zank and the team at BDS help companies flourish in the age of data by finding novel ways to grow their products and revenue using machine learning and data science.

Zank has more than two decades of analytics experience and has served as the director of data science for both Trunk Club and SweetLabs. Zank’s years of experience shaped the easy to understand, product-first approach he now delights in bringing to his customers, from scrappy start-ups to established Fortune 500’s.

Bob Bress is Head of Data Science at Freewheel, a Comcast Company focused on advanced advertising technologies. In that role he leads teams of data science and analytical staff using their expertise to lead the development of the next generation of advanced targeted advertising products for television and premium video. Bob has over 15 years of analytics experience across industries including work in hospitality, energy, and at GE's Global Research Center in the Applied Statistics Lab.

Bob holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research & Statistics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Jeffrey D. Camm is Associate Dean of Business Analytics, the Inmar Presidential Chair in Analytics, and the Executive Director of the Center for Analytics Impact at the Wake Forest University School of Business. He received his PhD in Management Science from Clemson University and a BS in Mathematics from Xavier University. Prior to joining Wake Forest, he  held the Joseph S. Stern Chair in Business Analytics in the Lindner College of Business at the University of Cincinnati and he has been a visiting professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and the School of Engineering at Stanford University.

Professor Camm’s scholarship is on the application of optimization modeling and solution algorithms to difficult decision problems in a diverse set of application areas including, operations planning and scheduling, supply chain optimization, product design, and conservation. His research has appeared in Science, Management Science, Operations Research, Interfaces and a variety of other journals and has been funded by the USAF Office of Scientific Research, the U.S. EPA, the U.S. Office of Naval Research, and Argonne National Labs.

Camm has coauthored nine textbooks in statistics, management science, and analytics. He is coauthor of the third edition of Business Analytics (Cengage Publishing), the best-selling textbook on business analytics.  In 2006, he won the INFORMS Prize for the Teaching of Operations Research Practice and previously served as the editor in chief of Interfaces (now the INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics). He was the 2016 recipient of the Kimball Medal for service to the operations research profession and in 2017 he was elected an INFORMS Fellow.  

A firm believer in practicing what he preaches, he has consulted for numerous corporations including among others, Procter and Gamble, Owens Corning, GE, Duke Energy, Tyco, Ace Hardware, Corning, Boar’s Head, Starbucks, Road Runner Sports, Brooks Running Shoes and Kroger. His work in supply chain optimization with Procter & Gamble was a 1996 Edelman Award Finalist and is credited with helping P&G save over $250,000,000 annually in their North American supply chain. In 1998, his joint work on nature reserve site selection for efficient conservation was published in the journal Science and appeared in a brief to President Clinton.

Dan Case is a Principal with Cicero Group and co-leads the firm’s Customer Insight and Analytics practice. Dan has specific expertise in using analytic approaches to empower tangible, data-driven strategies for clients. With over ten years of management consulting and research experience, Dan has been a trusted advisor to senior executives across a range of companies and industries. 

Dave Chan is a certified business intelligence and change management professional, with a track record of implementing data-driven programmes for retail banking, media and healthcare organizations. Currently the Global Lead of Data Excellence at UBM plc, and Vice President Digital Innovation - Business Intelligence at UBM Asia, Dave leads teams and partners that deliver new industry standards in digitalization and use of data intelligence across sales, marketing and finance. UBM operates in more than 20 countries and organizes over 300 market-leading B2B events every year, creating environments which allow businesses to flourish.Prior to UBM Asia, Dave was with HSBC and has held various positions in regional CRM, business intelligence and strategic planning in retail banking.

Stephen Chen spent over 10 years as an advanced analytics management consultant in diverse industries (including financial, retail, CPG, automotive, telecom, technology, healthcare, agency etc.) helping senior management turnaround their businesses with his blend of data science, strategy, and human insights expertise. Along the way, he has audited numerous models as well as developed analytic techniques that address shortcomings of existing methods.

Originally trained as a social scientist, Stephen was one of the handful of researchers to specialize in Social Network Analysis before the ascendance of Google and Facebook popularized those algorithms. He taught classes on Critical Statistics in university and has been a passionate advocate for model robustness and reliability.

Aaron is currently the Vice President of Data Science and Solutions at dotData. As a data science practitioner with 14 years of research and industrial experience, he has held various leadership positions in spearheading new product development in the fields of data science and business intelligence. At dotData, Aaron leads the data science team in working directly with clients and solving their most challenging problems.

Prior to joining dotData, he was a Data Science Principle Manager with Accenture Digital, responsible for architecting data science solutions and delivering business values for the tech industry on the West Coast. He was instrumental in the strategic expansion of Accenture Digital’s footprint in the data science market in North America.

Aaron received his Ph.D. degree in Applied Physics from Northwestern University.

Lawrence is Senior Partner, COO and Customer Insights & Advanced Analytics practice leader with Cicero Group. Lawrence has spent the last decade building Cicero's analytics practice where he has experience helping Fortune 1000 firms solve real business challenges with data, including attrition, segmentation, sales prioritization, pricing, and customer satisfaction. He also leads the firm in predictive analytics and Big Data related engagements, applying Cicero’s deep expertise in strategy execution to ensure data delivers ROI.  He has partnered with companies to help them to shift from reactive to predictive analytics by collecting and analyzing real-time information and distributing it across the organization— allowing management to make better, faster decisions that move the business forward.

Lawrence holds a Master’s of Science in Predictive Analytics from Northwestern University, an MBA with an emphasis in Business Economics from Westminster College, and a BA from Brigham Young University

Dr. Dyann Daley, MD,  is an experienced pediatric anesthesiologist and child maltreatment prevention executive, specializing in location-based predictive modeling, systems thinking, and development of practical solutions for community-influenced children’s issues.  

Dr. Daley founded and was the executive director of Cook Children’s Center for Prevention of Child Maltreatment in Fort Worth, Texas where she demonstrated the effectiveness of place-based predictive analytics for child maltreatment using spatial risk modeling.  She went on to found Predict Align Prevent, a national nonprofit advancing geospatial machine learning predictions in child welfare, strategic alignment of prevention resources, and implementation of accountable prevention programs to prevent child maltreatment before it happens.  Her organization is committed to open science for social good. 

Dr. Gourab De is the Vice President of Data Science at DataRobot, where his primary focus is helping customers improve their ability to make and implement predictions. Previously, De was part of the data science team at Ginger.io focusing on behavioral analytics in mental health. His professional experience includes statistical genetics, clinical trials, retrospective claims analysis, chart review studies, predictive modeling and pharmacoeconomic modeling. De graduated with honors from the Indian Statistical Institute in Kolkata, India, and received a Ph.D. in Biostatistics from Harvard University.

Ash is Chief Analytics Officer at Publishers Clearing House and is responsible for driving AI Driven (Machine &Deep learning) business impact to the business. Ash oversees analytics, algorithm& sciences , and business insights across E/Commerce, Digital Entertainment and PCH Media.

Ash is 2019’s top 100 Data & Analytics innovators, Advisory Board Member to The Rutgers University Big Data Program and various Analytics organizations.  

John Elder chairs America’s most experienced Data Science consultancy. Founded in 1995, Elder Research has offices in Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Washington DC, and London. Dr. Elder co-authored 3 award-winning books on analytics, was a discoverer of ensemble methods, chairs international conferences, and is a popular keynote speaker. John is occasionally an Adjunct Professor of Systems Engineering at the University of Virginia.

ERIC J. FELSBERG is a Principal in the Long Island, New York office of Jackson Lewis P.C. and the National Director of JL Data Analytics Group.

As the National Director of JL Data Analytics Group, Mr. Felsberg leads a team of multidisciplinary lawyers, statisticians, data scientists, and analysts with decades of experience managing the interplay of data analytics and the law. Under Mr. Felsberg's leadership, the Data Analytics Group applies proprietary algorithms and state-of-the-art modeling techniques to help employers evaluate risk and drive legal strategy.

In addition to other services, the team offers talent analytics for recruitment, workforce management and equity and policy assessments through predictive modeling, partners with employers in the design of data-driven solutions that comply with applicable workplace law, manages and synthesizes large data sets from myriad sources into analyzable formats, provides compliance assessment and litigation support services including damage calculations, risk assessments, and selection decision analyses, and offers strategic labor relations assistance including determination of long term costs of collective bargaining agreements, review of compliance with collectively bargained compensation plans and assessment of the efficacy of training programs. The JL Data Analytics Group designs its service delivery models to maximize the protections afforded by the attorney-client and other privileges.

Mr. Felsberg also provides training and daily counsel to employers in various industries on day-to-day employment issues and the range of federal, state, and local affirmative action compliance obligations. Mr. Felsberg works closely with employers to prepare affirmative action plans for submission to the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) during which he analyzes and investigates personnel selection and compensation systems. Mr. Felsberg has successfully represented employers during OFCCP compliance reviews, OFCCP individual complaint investigations, and in matters involving OFCCP claims of class-based discrimination. He regularly evaluates and counsels employers regarding compensation systems both proactively as well as in response to complaints and enforcement actions.

Mr. Felsberg is an accomplished and recognized speaker on issues of workplace analytics and affirmative action compliance.

While at Hofstra University School of Law, Mr. Felsberg served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal.

Josh Frank works at Caesars as Vice President of Gaming, Data Science, and Fraud Analytics having previously worked in the role of Director of Advanced Analytics.  Prior to Caesars he worked at Intuit as Manager of Risk Modeling and Data Sciences.  Prior to that Josh worked as a Senior Researcher for the Center for Responsible Lending (a think tank/advocacy organization), as a professor of economics, an economic forecaster for state government, co-founded a non-profit organization, and managed various functions at a top ten credit card issuer.  Josh has his Ph.D. in Economics as well as an MBA.  Josh has had numerous newspaper/television interviews from major media outlets as well as academic publications.

Bill Franks is the Director of the Center for Statistics and Analytical Research at Kennesaw State University. He is also Chief Analytics Officer for The International Institute For Analytics (IIA) and serves on several corporate advisory boards. Franks is also the author of the books Winning The Room, Taming The Big Data Tidal Wave, The Analytics Revolution, and 97 Things About Ethics Everyone In Data Science Should Know. He is a sought after speaker and frequent blogger who has over the years been ranked a top global big data influencer, a top global artificial intelligence and big data influencer, a top AI influencer, and was an inaugural inductee into the Analytics Hall of Fame. His work, including several years as Chief Analytics Officer for Teradata (NYSE: TDC), has spanned clients in a variety of industries for companies ranging in size from Fortune 100 companies to small non-profit organizations.  You can learn more at http://www.bill-franks.com.

Ryohei is the Founder & CEO of dotData. Prior to founding dotData, he was the youngest research fellow ever in NEC Corporation’s 119-year history, the title was honored for only six individuals among 1000+ researchers. During his tenure at NEC, Ryohei was heavily involved in developing many cutting-edge data science solutions with NEC’s global business clients, and was instrumental in the successful delivery of several high-profile analytical solutions that are now widely used in industry. Ryohei received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Tokyo in the field of machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Michael leads Metis' Corporate Training business, which provides onsite and online training, custom learning paths, and content licensing in data science, data engineering, and artificial intelligence. He comes to Metis from General Electric where he worked to establish their data science strategy and capabilities for field services and to build solutions supporting global operations, risk, engineering, sales, and marketing. Prior to GE, Michael spent several years as a data scientist working on problems in credit modeling at Kabbage and corporate travel and procurement at TRX. Michael holds a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics and a Master's degree in Computational Science and Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology where he also spent 3 years working on machine learning research problems related to computational biology and bioinformatics. Additionally, Michael spent 12 years in the United States Marine Corps where he held various leadership roles within aviation, logistics, and training units.

Robert Grossman is a partner at Analytic Strategy Partners and a professor at the University of Chicago.  From 2002 to 2016, he was the Founder and Managing Partner of Open Data Group, which provided data science consulting services to a wide variety of companies, including those in financial services, location services, computational advertising and cybersecurity. From 1996 to 2001, he was the Founder and CEO of Magnify, which developed predictive analytic software for the financial services and computational advertising industries.  Magnify was sold to ChoicePoint in 2003 and is now part of the RELX Group.  He is the Frederick H. Rawson Professor of Medicine and Computer Science and the Jim and Karen Frank Director of the Center for Translational Data Science at the University of Chicago, where he leads a data science research group that is developing systems and algorithms for managing, analyzing and sharing large biomedical and environmental datasets.

Alwin is the Founder and Managing Director of the data analytics and technology boutique Haensel AMS – Advanced Mathematical Solutions, with offices in Berlin and New York. He holds a Phd in Applied Mathematics and studied in London, Berlin and Amsterdam. His main fields of interest are the modeling of individual customer purchasing behavior to optimize pricing and marketing strategies. Most recently, he concentrated on eCommerce topics such as: multi-touch attribution, dynamic pricing.

Rob is an experienced change agent and leader of quantitative practices, specializing in the use of data and analysis to help organizations navigate periods of great change. As the AVP-Advanced Analytics and Planning, Rob is focused on analytics and data strategy for the Retirement Solutions Division of Pacific Life. Prior to joining Pacific Life, Rob oversaw the Insurance Operations Optimization & Decision Analytics practice at John Hancock. Rob started this internal consulting practice in 2015 after taking on increasing roles of responsibility in Reinsurance Finance, Corporate Development/Strategy, and Analytics. Before joining John Hancock in 2008, Rob had extensive experience in the shipbuilding industry with a focus on optimizing design for construction efficiency. Rob holds a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering from the University of Delaware, as well as a Masters of Business Administration from Boston University.

Ramsey Kail is Overstock’s marketing Group Product Manager. In this role, he oversees the long-term vision for marketing technology and works alongside the business and product teams in the marketing department to build a world-class marketing technology stack. Ramsey is currently building a platform to deliver customers just what they are looking for at every impression.

When Ramsey joined the Overstock team in November of 2017 as a product manager, he implemented many processes including cross-channel tracking for engagement data and dynamic cross-channel messaging campaigns. He also enabled a real-time push and email service to better serve customers personalized content quickly.

Prior to joining Overstock, he worked at Urban Airship where he led the technical account management and the implementation engineering teams. He is a strong leader and is experienced in project management, enterprise software, customer relationship management, and database usage.

Krishna Kallakuri is President & founder of Loven Systems, the creators of diwo®.  Krishna’s visionary leadership and delivery of transformational BI and Analytics initiatives to leading Fortune 500's has landed the practice he has founded on the Midwest’s Fastest-Growing list. With 20 years of expertise in technology and executive management, Mr. Kallakuri’s passion for advanced analytics, cognitive technologies, and artificial intelligence has led to pioneering work—most recently the launch of diwo®, which was developed from the ground up as a “business-first” platform to address the adoption issues common with other transformative initiative

Analytics Leader with 15+ years of experience in driving business solution through innovation, growth hacks and thought leadership in analytics technology/product domain. My work in Predictive Analytics, Informatics, and Visualization is widely recognized in the industry and I have been invited to conferences and top tier universities to speak on topics such as Growth Hacking, Big Data, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Data Visualization. I am also an active peer reviewer for top machine learning and artificial intelligence conferences and journals. Over the last 10 years, I have worked on launching mega-successful products at Amazon and Facebook.

William Komp is the Principle Data Scientist at Komplytics LLC.. He has over 2 decades of experience in academia, health care, marketing analytics, transportation, logistics, Oil&Gas, Food&Beverage, environmental management, renewable energy and public utilities. He was the technical editor for Applied Predictive Analytics (J. WIley and Sons 2014). He holds a PhD Physics with areas of research in Gravitation, Cosmology and Quantum Field Theory in Curved Spacetime.

Theresa builds world-class teams that make data and the insight it provides vital to marketing and sales organizations. She has built teams across the high tech vertical from Texas Instruments to IBM, Cisco and VMware serving as both a manager and executive in marketing and today as VP of Enterprise Information Management. Theresa held Sr. Director Customer, Intelligence and various Marketing Management roles at IBM, Unify and Texas Instruments. One wish for MO is that all MO organizations should learn to capitalize on their unique view of the customer by working closely with their corporate IT and other business functions. Theresa's pastime is solving the NY Times Crossword puzzle every day.

Peter Lenz is a geographer and data scientist with Dstillery, a data insights company that builds behavioral profiles from billions of observations of human behavior every day using AI. Specializing in geographic big data and data storytelling, Peter can dive anywhere into the data pipeline from writing code, training models, to discovering insights in the data. He built up skill set working in the urban planning world, first at a consulting firm and later with an agency of the Department of the Interior. A native of New York City, today he and his family live in the Hudson Valley.

Chris has 20 years experience as a advanced predictive analytics leader including real-time data mining, text and optimization analytics.  Prior to Altair Chris has worked as a consultant for SAS and Infor Epiphany in the area of advanced and real-time predictive analytics with  global focus on the Retail Financial Services and Telecommunications businesses.

Shingai Manjengwa is the Chief Executive Officer of Fireside Analytics Inc., an ed-tech start-up that develops customized online and in-person professional development programs that teach digital and AI literacy, data science, data visualization and computer programming. Clients include corporates, governments, higher education institutions and high schools. Data Science courses by Fireside Analytics have over 400,000 registered learners on platforms like IBMs CognitiveClass.ai and Coursera. 

A data scientist by profession, Shingai is the Technical Education Specialist at the Vector Institute for AI in Toronto, Canada and she is also the founder of Fireside Analytics Academy, a registered private high school (BSID: 886528) that teaches high school students data science and offers the data science course curriculum to other high schools. Shingai’s children’s book, ‘The Computer and the Cancelled Music Lessons’ teaches data science to kids ages 5 to 12.

Haig R. Nalbantian is a Senior Partner at Mercer and a founder/leader of Mercer's Workforce Sciences Institute. A labor /organizational economist, he has been instrumental in developing Mercer's unique capability to measure the economic impact of human capital practices. Those capabilities have been applied in numerous projects he has directed for leading companies in the U.S. and abroad across a broad range of industries, including energy, high technology, manufacturing, consumer products, financial services, media and information services, telecommunications, and professional services. He has also consulted to organizations in the public and not-for-profit sectors. In recent years, Haig has worked extensively with high-profile organizations in the Middle East, with particular focus on strategic workforce planning, workforce strategies and metrics.

Haig came to Mercer from National Economic Research Associates which he joined in 1989. Earlier, he was on the faculty of economics at New York University and was a research scientist at its C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics. He is an internationally recognized expert in incentives, human capital measurement and management and their links to organizational performance. He has published widely on these topics in books and articles in leading academic and professional journals, such as the American Economic Review, The Journal of Labor Economics, The Harvard Business Review, Compensation and Benefits Review, WorldatWork, among many others. His HBR article, "Making Mobility Matter," received the Academy of Management's 2010 award for "Outstanding Practitioner-oriented Publication" in 2009.

Nalbantian co-authored the prize-winning book on human capital measurement and management, Play to Your Strengths (McGraw Hill, 2004). He is also editor of and chief contributor to the book, Incentives, Cooperation and Risk Sharing and is a frequent speaker before industry groups, professional associations and academic audiences across the globe. He led the research team and co-authored the 2012 World Economic Forum/Mercer study of global talent mobility, "Talent Mobility Good Practices: Collaboration at the Core of Driving Economic Growth."

Haig earned his BA in English and Economics at New York University and his graduate degrees in economics from Columbia University. He is a member of the American Economic Association.

Nick is Co-Founder of NuView Analytics, a Denver based analytics firm focused on accelerating speed to insights from data.  NuView works with companies to bring data to the forefront of business allowing for efficient data informed decision making.  Recent clients include Dell, Bain Capital, Rover, Galvanize and many high growth start-ups.

Nick has over a decade of experience in data analytics and predictive modeling.  He has developed and optimized algorithmic models across disciplines and leads the Fractional Data Science practice at NuView.  His analytics interest doesn’t end with business cases, his personal passion is sports analytics, often developing and tweaking models for fantasy sports and March Madness. 

Trained originally in Ecosystem Analysis & Modeling, Dr. Nisbet modeled forests at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  He moved to NCR in 1994, developing configurable data mining applications for customer Churn, Propensity-to-buy, and Customer Acquisition in Telecommunications.  He has worked also in Insurance, Banking, Credit, membership organizations (e.g. AAA), and Health Care industries. He is lead author of the award-winning Handbook of Statistical Analysis & Data Mining Applications (Academic Press, 2009, 2017), and a co-author and general editor of the award-winning "Practical Text Mining" (Academic Press, 2012) and Practical Predictive Analytics and Decisioning Systems in Medicine (Academic Press, 2015).  A new book on Effective Data Preparation is available from with Cambridge University Press.  Currently, he serves as an Instructor in the University of California at Irvine Predictive Analytics Certificate Program, teaching many online and on-campus courses each year in Effective Data Preparation and Predictive Analytics Applications.

Every year, corporations spend more than $250B on litigation in the US. The critical decisions - whether to litigate or settle or where to file suit - are often made the same way they were 100 years ago. To gain insight that companies could use to make informed decisions on legal proceedings, we built a predictive analytics engine. The approach, combining minimal viable prediction with data from thousands of patent appeal cases over 10 years, was developed to predict outcomes in future patent appeal cases. We think of it like Moneyball, but for a market 20x the size of Majors.

Brian Pearson has led dynamic IT organizations for startup, growth, franchise, and mature public restaurant companies. Brian’s IT development began in the US Army, where he studied cryptography and telecommunications management. He has also led the technology organizations for Ruby’s Diner, BJ’s Restaurants, and recently STACKED Restaurants, LLC.

At both Ruby’s Diner and BJ’s Restaurants, Brian had to build solutions from the ground up, integrating POS, KDS, HRIS, ERP and numerous other in store and above store technologies to achieve the company's strategic agenda. At BJ’s he also led the Sarbanes-Oxley, and PCI implementations from ground up.
Brian is an IT leader with a foundation in, and bias towards, Operations.  His specialties include Mobile Strategy and Development, Business Process Automation, Product Integration and Analytics.

Jennifer has spent most of her career creating a data-driven culture wherever she went, succeeding in sometimes highly skeptical environments. She is particularly skilled at building and scaling high-performance Machine Learning teams, and is known for enjoying a good challenge. Trained as a particle physicist, she likes to use her analytical mind not only when building complex models, but also as part of her leadership philosophy. She is pragmatic yet detail-oriented. Jennifer also takes great pleasure in addressing both technical and non-technical audiences at conferences and seminars, and is passionate about attracting more women to careers in STEM.

Nick Pylypiw is a Manager of Data Science at Elicit, a high-end boutique consultancy that helps clients leverage analytics and technology to drive business value.  The company’s Fortune 500 clients include Southwest Airlines, HomeAway, Fossil, GameStop, Sephora, BevMo! and Pier 1 Imports.  Prior to Elicit, he honed his analytics skills at Lowe's Home Improvement (Manager of Pricing and Marketing Analytics) and Cardinal Solutions (Principal Data Science Consultant).  He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Seth Quillin is the Sr. Manager of Sales Analytics at Southwest Airlines where he oversees teams of sales analysts whose primary focus is on ingesting large amounts of data and translating the analytics into meaningful insights that the account management teams can leverage to deepen engagement with their corporate partners.  In his 14 years with Southwest, Seth has been a part of both operations and business planning teams, including Marketing, Network Planning, and Commercial Planning.  His primary concentration in each of these roles has been on implementing new uses of data to launch and drive new market development or leading business unit turnarounds.

Lily is an Associate Director of Data Science at Humana Military, where she uses predictive analytics and visualization to help business leaders make better strategic decisions and to improve the customer journey for Humana Military's beneficiaries, who are active duty service members of the military and their dependents.  Previously, she was an Analytics Lead at Barclays Investment Bank, where she led the proof of concept and implementation of various cross-functional initiatives ranging from a recommendation system for the Sales team to a self-service Tableau platform for the Risk and Finance teams.  When not immersed in data, Lily thinks about ticking off the next item on her growing bucket list.  Next up: training for her first sprint triathlon.

Lily has a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the University of the Philippines and a Master of Science in Business Analytics from New York University's Stern School of Business.

Tauseef Rahman is a principal in Mercer's Workforce Strategy & Analytics practice. He is responsible for developing and delivering projects which enable organizations for growth through the use of analytics which combine engagement, career, and rewards information.

Currently based in San Francisco, he has also been based in Mercer's Los Angeles, Dubai, Melbourne and Houston offices.

His recent projects include the integration of an annual pay equity analysis into a company’s yearly business cycle for a global consumer technology company, and an employee survey using conjoint analysis which resulted in changes to parental benefits at a global financial services and investments company.

Tauseef has presented at industry conferences, including WorldatWork Total Rewards and National Association of Stock Plan Professionals on the use of analytics in pay, and regularly speaks at forums on the future of work and the implication of artificial intelligence on the workforce.

Tauseef holds a bachelor's degree in economics from Claremont McKenna College, in Claremont, California.

Steven J. Ramirez is the chief executive officer of Berkeley, Calif.-based Beyond the Arc, Inc., a firm recognized as a leader in helping companies transform their customer experiences by leveraging advanced analytics.

In addition to developing and executing the vision for Beyond the Arc, Ramirez leads teams of data and strategy consultants committed to client success. They analyze customer and social media data, combined with text analysis, to drive customer growth, improve customer retention, understand service breaks and build stronger customer loyalty.

Prior to leading Beyond the Arc, Ramirez served as an executive with Time Warner, where he was responsible for creating and successfully implementing marketing and corporate development strategies.

Ramirez earned a bachelor's degree and master's in Business Administration from the University of California at Berkeley. He as also created and taught courses in business management for UC Berkeley and been a guest speaker at the university's Haas School of Business.

Karl Rexer founded Rexer Analytics in 2002. He and his teams have built an outstanding reputation providing predictive modeling and analytic consulting to clients across many industries. Recent clients include OneBlood, PwC, Boston Scientific, Redbox, ADT Security, Interamericana University, MIT, Forward Financing, SharkNinja, and many smaller companies. In addition to leading client engagements and hands-on data work, Karl is a predictive analytics evangelist, frequently speaking at conferences, colleges, and other events. He also serves on Advisory Boards for the Business Analytics programs at both Babson College and Bentley University. Since 2007 Rexer Analytics has conducted surveys of analytic professionals, asking them about their algorithms, tools, behaviors and  views. Summary reports from these surveys are available as a free download from the Rexer Analytics website. Prior to founding Rexer Analytics, Karl held leadership positions at several consulting firms and two multi-national banks. Karl holds a PhD from the University of Connecticut.

As Chief Strategy Officer, Anne is responsible for accelerating Kinaxis strategy development to add further value to customers. She and her team collaborates closely with customers, external stakeholders and the rest of the senior executive team to drive the strategic roadmap, thought leadership and identify emerging technologies and new industry opportunities.

A proven leader in analytics and digital transformation, with expertise in operations, supply chain, and strategy, Anne has extensive experience in managing supply chains for complex, global organizations. As Executive Director, Global Supply Chain Strategy, Analytics and Systems at Verizon, Anne was responsible for the strategic vision of the company’s global end-to-end supply chain, driving excellence through world-class data-analytics, process innovation and employee empowerment. Before Verizon, Anne spent several years at Cisco where she was responsible for managing advanced analytics, business intelligence and performance management teams.

Anne is a past president of INFORMS (the Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences), a seasoned industry speaker and has served on several advisory boards. Originally from St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Anne has a BScH from Acadia University, MASc from the University of Waterloo and an MSc and PhD in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University.

Chris Robison serves as Director of Data and Audience working to unite data flow and Data Science for a cross-channel marketing experience driven by real-time data. Previously, as the Lead Data Scientist for Digital Marketing and Fraud Prevention at Overstock, he and his team utilized big data and machine learning to create personalized shopping experiences for customers. He works extensively on display, PLA, and Paid Keywords leveraging modeling techniques from classical time series to cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence.

Prior to joining Overstock in 2016, Chris gained widespread experience at early-stage startups using Spark and building out data science frameworks and solutions. He graduated from the University of Utah with dual Masters Degrees in Computer Science and Statistics.

Wolf Ruzicka is Chairman of the Board for Ex Parte. Wolf’s keen vision and strategic direction has been instrumental in driving the success of Ex Parte and EastBanc Technologies. Wolf joined the leadership team at Ex Parte in 2019 and EastBanc Technologies in 2007.

Wolf is an entrepreneur, technology advocate, and mentor. He serves on numerous boards and groups, including the Board of Halcyon House, Board of the Center for Innovative Technology, Questback, Microsoft Customer Advisory Board for Microsoft Azure and the World Economic Forum's “Partnering for Cyber Resilience” initiative. Prior to joining the EastBanc Technologies team, Wolf served as President of APIphany (now part of Microsoft) and held leadership positions with MicroStrategy, Mercedes Benz, Lufthansa, and more. Wolf holds an MBA from Ingolstadt School of Management.

Allan Sammy, M.Sc., CPA, CIA is the Director, Data Science and Audit Analytics at Canada Post . He works with Internal Audit clients across the corporation to provide assurance and advisory services relating to advanced analytics and data modeling and leads the development of big data capabilities and utilization as well as the coordination of IA department analytic initiatives. He has a Master's degree in Predictive Analytics from Northwestern and over 20 years of experience in Risk Management, Investigations and Internal Audit. Prior to joining Canada Post he was Director, Fraud Risk Management at the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation and the Head of Internal Audit at the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA). He has published articles on Auditing Analytic Models (IA Magazine) and using Artificial Intelligence and Neural Network Models for Fraud Ddetection (Certified Fraud Examiners (CFE) magazine online).

Dan has 15+ years experience in Data Science, Business Intelligence, Data Analytics, and developing Data-Driven Strategy for organizations. In addition, Dan has led and managed Data Science and Analytics practices for organizations. Dan has worked in retail, Finance, and Auto leading analytics and Data Science and modeling practices supporting business strategies for in-house and consultations for the client such as Four Seasons, AAA, Verizon, etc.  Dan has a Ph.D. in Media Information Studies from Michigan State University.

Mark W. Shafer, Senior Vice President of Revenue Management & Analytics for Disney Parks, Experiences & Consumer Products has been a Disney cast member for 23 years. 

His responsibilities include leading an Internal consulting team responsible for supporting clients across The Walt Disney Company including Parks and Resorts, Media Networks  (e.g., ABC, ESPN, Disney Channel, A&E Networks etc.), and Studio Entertainment (The Walt Disney Studios, Disney Theatrical).  This support encompasses system development leveraging technology, data analytics, optimization, statistical and econometric modeling to explore opportunities, shape business decisions and drive business value.  These solutions span across business problems such as Marketing ROI, Ad Sales Optimization, B to B and B to C pricing, revenue management, ratings forecasting, digital viewership forecasting, demand simulation, and personalization. 

Mark spent 12 years in the airline industry with People Express Airlines and Continental Airlines, holding positions in Domestic and International Pricing/Revenue Management. 

Mohammad is currently a Senior Data & Applied Scientist at Microsoft, and Instructor at Stanford University. He is a former Data Scientist at Apple and previously worked for Samsung, Bosch, General Electric and UCLA Research Labs. He received a PhD in Computer Science from the University of California, Riverside and B.Sc. from University of Tehran. Mohammad is the author of the book, ‘Applications of Mining Massive Time Series Data'. He has also been a keynote speaker at more than 40 Data Summits/Conferences around the globe. 

Eric Siegel, Ph.D., is a leading consultant and former Columbia University professor who helps companies deploy machine learning. He is the founder of the long-running Machine Learning Week conference series and its new sister, Generative AI Applications Summit, the instructor of the acclaimed online course “Machine Learning Leadership and Practice – End-to-End Mastery,” executive editor of The Machine Learning Times, and a frequent keynote speaker. He wrote the bestselling Predictive Analytics: The Power to Predict Who Will Click, Buy, Lie, or Die, which has been used in courses at hundreds of universities, as well as The AI Playbook: Mastering the Rare Art of Machine Learning Deployment. Eric’s interdisciplinary work bridges the stubborn technology/business gap. At Columbia, he won the Distinguished Faculty award when teaching the graduate computer science courses in ML and AI. Later, he served as a business school professor at UVA Darden. Eric also publishes op-eds on analytics and social justice.

Eric has appeared on Bloomberg TV and Radio, BNN (Canada), Israel National Radio, National Geographic Breakthrough, NPR Marketplace, Radio National (Australia), and TheStreet. Eric and his books have been featured in Big Think, Businessweek, CBS MoneyWatch, Contagious Magazine, The European Business Review, Fast Company, The Financial Times, Forbes, Fortune, GQ, Harvard Business Review, The Huffington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Luckbox Magazine, MIT Sloan Management Review, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, Newsweek, Quartz, Salon, The San Francisco Chronicle, Scientific American, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Trailblazers with Walter Isaacson, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and WSJ MarketWatch.

Dr. Marc A. Smith is a sociologist specializing in the social organization of online communities and computer mediated interaction. Smith leads the Connected Action consulting group. Smith co-founded the Social Media Research Foundation (http://www.smrfoundation.org/), a non-profit devoted to open tools, data, and scholarship related to social media research. He contributes to the open and free NodeXL project (http://nodexl.codeplex.com) that adds social network analysis features to the familiar Excel spreadsheet. NodeXL enables social network analysis of email, Twitter, Flickr, WWW, Facebook and other network data sets. Along with Derek Hansen and Ben Shneiderman, he is the co-author and editor of Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL: Insights from a connected world, from Morgan-Kaufmann which is a guide to mapping connections created through computer-mediated interactions. Smith has published research on social media extensively, providing a map to the landscape of connected communities on the Internet.

Peter is an entrepreneurial minded data scientist whose expertise in building analytic solutions and insights to tell data driven stories have impacted organizations including Alibaba, Citrix and Lyft. Peter has lead experimentation design and analytics projects focused on retention, user acquisition and channel optimization in the SaaS and rideshare spaces. The solutions he has produced include incrementality testing, segmentation, ML models and fraud. Peter is a passionate advocate for building analytics teams in cross-functional environments.

As Chief Data Scientist at Hopper, Patrick Surry analyzes flight data to help consumers make smarter travel choices. Patrick is recognized as a travel expert and he frequently provides data-driven insight on the travel industry and trends.

Patrick’s research and commentary have been featured in outlets such as New York Times, USA Today, Bloomberg Businessweek, TIME, and many others. Patrick also regularly appears on various broadcast stations to offer travel insight and tips.

Patrick holds a PhD in mathematics and statistics from the University of Edinburgh, where he studied optimization based on evolutionary algorithms, following an HBSc in continuum mechanics from the University of Western Ontario.

You can also follow Patrick on Twitter at @PatrickSurry.

Previously Nathan was a data scientist on the Wells Fargo Enterprise Analytics and Data Science team where he led a small team as head of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Speech Capabilities Development, and was focused on building out Wells Fargo's capabilities in areas related to NLP, deep learning and data science product design. Nathan holds a Masters in Predictive Analytics from Northwestern University and is working on his second Masters in Computer Science from Georgia Tech. He has been with Wells Fargo for the past five years and worked in marketing analytics prior to his current role.

James Taylor is the CEO of Decision Management Solutions and is a leading expert in how to use business rules and analytic technology to build decision management systems. He is passionate about using decision management systems to help companies improve decision-making and develop an agile, analytic and adaptive business. He provides strategic consulting to companies of all sizes, working with clients in all sectors to adopt decision-making technology. James is an expert member of the International Institute for Analytics and is the author of multiple books and articles on decision management, decision modeling, predictive analytics and business rules, and writes a regular blog at JT on EDM. James also delivers webinars, workshops and training. He is a regular keynote speaker at conferences around the world.

Thomas M. Warden joined EMPLOYERS as Senior Vice President, Chief Data and Analytics Officer on May 22, 2017. He is responsible for data science, business intelligence and data governance across the company. He works closely with business partners and information technology to improve revenues and profitability through the application of predictive modeling, analytics and business intelligence to decision making. Mr. Warden brings to EMPLOYERS 30 years of insurance industry experience from Allstate, AIG and private consulting. Mr. Warden holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from The Ohio State University and an MBA from Harvard University. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst and is a member of the board of directors of Junior State of America.