Meet your instructors
Rick Cleary
Professor Rick Cleary is a statistician and mathematician with research and consulting interests in a variety of fields including sports, biomechanics, and statistical approaches to fraud detection and audit risk. Prior to coming to Babson College in 2013, Professor Cleary taught at St. Michael’s College in Vermont, Cornell University, Bentley University, and Harvard University. He has held many leadership positions in the Mathematical Association of America, including six years on the Executive Committee as Associate Treasurer and a term as chair of the Joint Data Committee. He is currently on the Nominations Committee and the Polya lecturer selection committee. Professor Cleary enjoys working with mathematics teachers at all levels to improve statistics education and he gives frequent talks and workshops on ways to encourage statistical thinking.
Nathan Karst
Dr. Nathan Karst received his B.S. in electrical and computer engineering from Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in 2007 and his doctorate in applied mathematics from Cornell. He is an avid teacher and researcher, having won the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 2014 and the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship in 2015. Most recently, his research has focused on the role of nonlinear dynamics in microvascular networks and event-scale streamflow recession variability.
Davit Khachatryan
Dr. Davit Khachatryan is an Assistant Professor of Statistics and Analytics at Babson College. He is an applied statistician with research interests in analyzing intellectual property data to study the formation and diffusion of knowledge in emerging industries. Davit’s current and former research has produced publications in academic, peer-reviewed journals such as Journal of the Royal Statistical Society (Series C), The American Statistician, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management (forthcoming), and Quality and Reliability Engineering International. Prior to joining Babson College, Davit was a Senior Associate at the National Economics and Statistics practice of Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC). In the latter role he consulted in the area of predictive modeling and advanced data analytics, helping clients from financial, healthcare, and government sectors with building automatic predictive models and enhancing business intelligence solutions. Davit has earned his B.S. in Applied Mathematics and Informatics from Yerevan State University, M.S. in Statistics and Ph.D. in Management Science from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
George Recck
Mr. Recck has taught at Babson College since 1984. He currently serves as the Chair of the Business Analytics/Statistics Education special interest group for the American Statistical Association (ASA). Mr. Recck is also the founder of Total Information, Inc., an consulting firm specializing in providing information service to small businesses.
Babak Zafari
†Dr. Zafari is an Assistant Professor of Analytics and Statistics in the Math & Science Division. His area of interests are Predictive Modeling and Data Mining Methods for Business Applications, Bayesian Statistics, Healthcare Fraud Analytics and Online Auctions. Prior to joining Babson College, he was a Visiting Assistant Professor at The George Washington University School of Business teaching courses in Data Analysis and Decisions, Business Analytics and Data Mining. He was also a senior statistician consultant at Integrity Management Services where he was responsible for developing statistical models for fraud detection in Medicare and Medicaid programs. He received his B.S. in Applied Mathematics from Sharif University of Technology, M.S. in Operations Research/Computer Science from Bowling Green State University and Ph.D. in Decision Sciences from The George Washington University School of Business.
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Meet your instructor
Thomas Davenport
Tom Davenport is the President’s Distinguished Professor of Information Technology and Management at Babson College, cofounder of the International Institute for Analytics, Fellow at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, and Senior Advisor to Deloitte Analytics. He teaches analytics/big data in executive programs at Babson, Harvard Business School and School of Public Health, and MIT Sloan School. Davenport pioneered the concept of “competing on analytics” with his best-selling 2006 Harvard Business Review article and 2007 book. His most recent book (with Julia Kirby) is Only Humans Need Apply: Winners and Losers in the Age of Smart Machines. He wrote or edited seventeen other books and over 100 articles for Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, The Financial Times, and many other publications. He is a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal. He has been named one of the top 25 consultants by Consulting News, one of the 100 most influential people in the IT industry by Ziff-Davis, and one of the world’s top fifty business school professors by Fortune magazine.
Megan Beck
Megan Beck is the Chief Product Officer at AIMatters, a digital startup that uses alternative data and AI to reframe how companies are valued in the era of transformational technology such social, mobile, big data, and machine learning. AIMatters uses new datasets to create AI-based products and services to help leaders, organizations, and investors manage and invest more wisely. Megan leads research, publication, curriculum, and new product initiatives for AIMatters. Megan coauthored The Network Imperative: How to Survive and Grow in the Age of Digital Business Models, published by the Harvard Business Review Press in 2016. She has published articles with Forbes, Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal and many others and gives key notes on topics such as business model transformation, the gig economy, artificial intelligence, alternative data, and women in the workforce. Entering the workforce as an engineer, Megan later transitioned to strategy consulting and spent several years at Bain & Company before leaving to advise clients directly in her areas of expertise. A loyal Longhorn, she received a BS in Computer Science and a BA in the Plan II Honors Program at the University of Texas at Austin. She holds an MBA from the McCombs School of Business and resides in Dallas, TX.
Barry Libert
Barry is a digital board member, CEO and board advisor. He is the founder and chairman of AIMatters, Inc., an AI start up that is reinventing consulting. He is an expert in digital business models – particularly platforms, networks and AI. Barry served as a senior fellow at The Wharton School where he led their research into new business models (platforms with network effect) at the SEI Center since 2011. Barry has spent the last 6 years advising CEOs and boards on how to transform their business models from product to platform, customer to network, and data to AI in order to achieve exponential growth and value. His startup portfolio companies, collectively, have built and managed more than 15,000 customer and employee networks with more than 40 million users for 350 brands with more than 100 million fans. Current boards include Enterprise Community Inc., Bellwether, Wharton’s SEI Center, as well as a variety of start-ups. Past and present institutional clients include Barrick Gold, iRobot, Salesforce, Microsoft, GE Healthcare, Sun Life, Goldman Sachs, Deloitte, PWC, and ESPN. Barry is an active columnist for HBR, Forbes, Knowledge at Warton and MIT’s Sloan Management Review (SMR). Starting in 2018, he will add CIO to his monthly features. His sixth book, The Network Imperative was published in June 2016 by Harvard Business Review (HBR) Press. This book, along with his others – including We Are Smarter than Me and Social Nation - focuses on why and how digital business models outperform all other types. Mr. Libert has delivered more than 500+ keynote speeches to 50,000 people globally at leading industry conferences, private corporate events, and institutional investor gatherings. He has published 1,250+ articles in such periodicals as Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Barron's, and The New York Times. He has also appeared on CNN, CNBC, Fox News Network, NPR, and Facebook Live. Barry began his career with McKinsey & Company, is a graduate of Tufts University (Magna Cum Laude) and holds an MBA from Columbia University (Beta Gamma Sigma).
