University analytics center rebrands and relaunches to help illuminate its field

As the world presses onward into a realm of new technologies and advanced artificial intelligence, humankind's ability to skillfully analyze systems - and, more specifically, the ways in which those systems can succeed or fail - has taken on an even enhanced significance.

Radford University's Center for Applied Analytics (formerly the Center for Innovation and Analytics) recently rebranded and revamped itself to help prepare students, faculty and the community to rise to new challenges of this era.

In December, Assistant Professor of Management Zach Collier was named the center's director, and on Wednesday, March 11, he kicked off the launch with an introductory luncheon at Kyle Hall, followed by a lecture from a veteran figure in the field.

First and foremost, Collier offered the event's attendees a concise definition of the concept at the center's heart.

"Analytics is the application of scientific and mathematical methods to study and analyze problems involving complex systems," he explained, then broke it down into three central categories:

• Descriptive analytics, which gives insight into past events using historical data, essentially detailing 'what has happened.'
• Predictive analytics, which seeks to predict and define what might happen in the future.
• Prescriptive analytics, which aids decision-making and attempts to provide actionable insights and advice.

The center's focus is the use of practical applications of analytics to solve real-world problems. Each academic year, it will host guest speakers and offer various workshops and training sessions. Through collaborations with faculty, the center also aims to pursue research and raise awareness of data-informed decision-making. Additionally, the center will teach students how data analysis can further their careers, and it will work with local organizations around Southwest Virginia to help develop practical insights.

"In a world full of complex problems ... analytics can give us a toolbox full of tools," Collier told the audience. "I can't claim that analytics can solve all of the world's problems, but this center can help make some progress and shed some light."

To that end, the center commenced its new phase by hosting its first guest speaker, Ben Trump, president of the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA), and also the head of Tor Intelligence LLC, an applied analytics firm based in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Among numerous other posts and positions, Trump was a strategic planner for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for the first two years of the pandemic; a senior research social scientist with the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC); and he spent eight years as the advanced research workshop director for NATO's Science for Peace and Security program.

He offered anecdotes about his prior work involving Ukraine's embattled transportation routes and New York City's emergency service accessibility, and an analytics tool that was used during the COVID-19 response that helped FEMA decide where to position temporary emergency medical facilities.

A running thread throughout Trump's talk concerned resilience.

"Resilience is about how organizations recover from and adapt to a disruption," he explained.

Noting that AI-driven infrastructure analysis and resilience modeling are essential tools for managing modern risks, he urged future analysts to sharpen their technical skills and systems thinking, as well as their ethical awareness.

"Even with advanced AI, analysts must interpret results and make ethical decisions," he said, adding that the choices they make could conceivably impact countless numbers of people.

"Analytical tools can determine how resources are allocated during crises, which directly affects survival outcomes," he said. "The consequence of you doing a good job can truly mean a life and death difference."

Despite that weight, Trump reminded the audience that even the most thorough analysis can only do so much.

"There's always something out there that's going to surprise you that you just can't predict," he said. "The only thing that you should definitely plan for is for your strategy to fail almost immediately after it's deployed."

He left the students with an open challenge: a central question he said future analysts must try to learn to answer.

"If a crisis were to start tomorrow, what breaks first?"

Radford University's Center for Applied Analytics is located in Kyle Hall Suite 231.