September / October 2020 Newsletter

PACM & DSA Newsletter

September / October

The PACM and DSA Newsletter allows you to learn more about applied math and data science by including interesting journal articles, interactive dashboards, upcoming events (such as career panels, seminars, and conferences), significant news articles, and featured profiles of faculty, alumni, and industry professionals. By providing you with timely and relevant information we help you to stay up-to-date with the fields of applied math and data science.

In this issue:

Buffalo State Data Talk
New Faculty Profile
Buffalo State DSA Fall 2020 Seminar Series
Alumni Spotlight You Yu '19
Faculty Pick Saziye Bayram
Spatial Data Science Conference
Data Now
Upcoming Events

Buffalo State Data Talk

New Episode Available September 1st

The Buffalo State Data Talk podcast introduces you to how data is used and explores careers that involve data. Buffalo State Data Talk is produced by members of the Industry Advisory Board. Transcripts for each episode can be found on our website.

Episode 1: Automation in manufacturing, how human interactions fit with data, an interview with Achintya Pillai from Panasonic/Tesla in Buffalo
Episode 2: Non-profit evaluation, a data career without a STEM background, an interview with Jessica Weitzel from VIA Evaluation, a women owned business
Listen to a teaser for episode two here.

Episodes can be found wherever you listen to podcasts.
Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Etc.

New Faculty Profile

Murray Richburg is the newest Adjunct Faculty member joining the Professional Science Master's family at Buffalo State! Murray will be teaching PSM 601: Project management for Math and Science Professionals. Description of course here.

Murray is an IT professional with 20+ years of experience in data management, project management, leadership, and process involvement in the health care, software engineering, and financial service sectors. He currently is the Assistant Vice President of Technology at M&T Bank.

Murray is also a member of the Industry Advisory Board and head of the Women and Minorities Committee. See full profile here.

Buffalo State DSA
Fall 2020 Seminar Series
Each event will be held virtually.
Check your email, the Daily, or request a link via email (campbehm@buffalostate.edu).

Alumni Spotlight
You Yu '19

What did you enjoy most about Buffalo?: It is nice to spend my study abroad period at Buff State. Buffalo is a peaceful city, very quiet, a good fit for doing research.

What advice do you have for current students?: Please never give up and believe your abilities, especially in Dr. Ghosh classes. From my perspective, I suggest students keep open and participate in more activities. Buff State is a wonderful university, you can see the beautiful campus, you can meet knowledgeable faculties, and finally, you can get more than you imagine.

See their full profile on the PACM website here.

Faculty Pick
Saziye Bayram

Saziye Bayram is the Chair of the PACM program and an Associate Professor in the math department. Saziye selected the article "Mathematical models for COVID-19: applications, limitations, and potentials" because it showcases that while mathematical models strive to be perfect, they are not!

In this the article the author look at multiple studies studies which combined mathematical models to predicted the magnitude and timing of the COVID-19 epidemic peak and the final epidemic size. However, these studies don't take into consideration a number of factors including indirect transmission pathways (from the environment to human hosts), or the fact that transmission rates may change with changes in epidemiological and socioeconomic status.

Spatial Data Science Conference

October 19th - 23rd

One of the scheduled speakers, Daniel Arribas-Bel, is the co-author of some of the tutorials used in GEG 584 – Geospatial Programming. Also, Luc Anselin, a principle developer of pysal (python spatial analysis libraries) which is use extensively in GEG 584, will also be speaking. Click here for a full list of speaker.

Data Now
Data science in the everyday

Fired Florida Data Scientist Creates New Dashboard

Rebekah Jones, a data scientist who worked for the Florida Department of Health, was fired after refusing to manipulate data to make it look like the state was ready to reopen.

In an article from NPR, "She says that on the state's dashboard, any person who tests positive will be counted as a positive test only once, no matter how many times they test positive. But a person who tests negative will be counted over and over again each time they test negative for the coronavirus." Full article can be found here.

Rebekah then made her own dashboard, available here. Which the state argues uses inaccurate data. While the two dashboards have similar layouts there are differences in the number of cases reported. Compare to the Florida Department of Health Dashboard here.

MIT Technology Review

The MIT Technology Review is a publication, originally founded at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. which identifies and analyzes emerging technologies and their commercial, social and political impacts.

With the presidential election coming in November articles have been published focusing on how new tech is being used in the election including how the pandemic will affect voting, voter surveillance tools and why we should be paying attention to social media.

Check out all the articles related to the election in their Election 2020 thread. You can read up to 3 articles for free. Also take some time to check out the many other threads and articles available from the MIT Technology Review.