IDSS and Booz Allen Hamilton collaborate to advance research and education in data science
Booz Allen’s support of IDSS will advance research efforts in data science and a variety of application domains
Data science can help unlock exciting new opportunities to drive business success and positive societal change—if organizations can take full advantage of its potential. To help reach this goal, MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS) announces Booz Allen Hamilton as a founding industry member—collaborating with IDSS in support of its mission to address complex challenges by advancing education and research at the intersection of statistics, data science, information and decision systems, and social science.
“We are committed to advancing education and research in data science,” says IDSS Director Munther Dahleh. “The collaboration with Booz Allen helps us advance common goals in training the next generation of students with both the technical and analytical tools integrated with the application domain knowledge needed to address today’s complex challenges.”
IDSS is home to a multi-disciplinary research community at MIT integrating systems thinking, quantitative analysis, and an understanding of human behavior—to address challenges inherent to highly interconnected and data-rich systems.
Likewise, Booz Allen is focused on innovation in data science and analytics to address real world challenges across a variety of areas including healthcare, smart cities, transportation, and cyber security in both the private and public sectors. The company has one of the industry’s largest data analytics teams, comprised of more than 600 people who use groundbreaking approaches in virtually every area of data science, including analytic techniques, modeling and simulation, optimization, data visualization, infrastructure development, machine learning, and quantum computing in order to help organizations stay competitive in an increasingly data-driven economy.
In Boston, Booz Allen is expanding their data science team and moving to a new downtown location at 50 Milk Street. The Boston/Cambridge area will continue to serve as a growing innovation hub for data science.
“An integrated approach to data science is critically important, and the way that IDSS and Booz Allen tackle data challenges demonstrates this in a highly complementary manner,” said Booz Allen Hamilton Executive Vice President Joe Logue, leader of the firm’s defense and intelligence business and member of the IDSS Advisory Board. “Together, we are well equipped to uncover new approaches to solve the significant challenges facing the world today—from improving analysis of critical geospatial information to enabling energy independence and beyond.”
As part of the collaboration, students will have the opportunity to connect with Booz Allen mentors, and interact with Booz Allen staff to solve real world problems. In return, Booz Allen will advance new capabilities and modeling techniques working with IDSS faculty and researchers.
“This collaboration with the IDSS is a proud moment both for our firm, and for me personally,” said Dr. Walid Fayad, an Executive Vice President and leader in the Middle East and North Africa region at Booz Allen Hamilton. “Our work together represents an important opportunity for our data scientists to help shape the next generation of data leaders while building new capabilities and honing their own skills.” Dr. Fayad holds a PhD in electronic materials from MIT.