(US and Canada) Jennifer Bachner, Director, Data Analytics and Policy Program, The Johns Hopkins University, speaks with Michael C. Fillios, Founder & CEO, IT Ally, about preparing students for a career in data analytics, learning from industry experts, and utilization of tools in education.

Bachner shares that many middle and high schools now provide STEM offerings in the area of analytics along with opportunities to learn programming and data science skills. She highlights traditional math courses’ value as a strong foundation that prepares students for analytical methods. Further, she stresses that a strong foundation in the core areas of math helps analysts develop better intuition for how statistical methods work.

Speaking on utilizing the tools to develop curriculum and work, she mentions that there are issues surrounding privacy and security that need much more attention from scholars, policymakers and regulators as technology continues to evolve. Accordingly, Johns Hopkins has partnered with REI Systems to host a government analytics breakfast forum bringing together students and professionals in the government and the industry to discuss how the public sector can use analytics to tackle policy and governance challenges.

Citing an example of technology usage, Bachner mentions text analysis tools that have helped identify the most common topics mentioned by commenters and also summarize the sentiments expressed about the issues.