Laura Albert: Podcast Insights, Grand Challenges for ISE, Teaching AI, and Punk Rock OR
We had the privilege of interviewing Laura Albert on our podcast. I’ve been a big fan of hers for many years.
Here are some resources from Laura that you may find helpful:
Podcasts
Of course, I enjoyed our podcast where we covered:
The importance of designing and evaluating resiliency in complex systems
The role of AI in decision-making and governance
Barriers to making a significant impact with data science and operations research
Bridging academia and industry through projects and case studies
Rethinking educational approaches amidst GenAI advancements
(Here are the links for YouTube, Spotify, and Apple.)
However, check out some of her other appearances:
On Badgar Talks: This is a great addition to helping explain what IE's do. I appreciated her points on turning data into decisions, making decisions in the face of uncertainty, and systems and multi-objective thinking.
I also enjoyed her s.t. podcast interview. I enjoyed her discussion of how blogging served as her creative outlet, how it improves with practice, and how it's essential to write for a broader audience. I also enjoyed how she described solving complex problems: you envision all the variables changing simultaneously to come up with a solution. (I’ve been bugging my son to help me come up with an animation that brings this idea to life!)
Grand Challenges for Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISE).
We covered some of the paper in our podcast, but check out the full document. There is a lot in there. I found the section on education inspiring and full of good ideas. LLMs are forcing education to change.
Teaching AI
She has a seven-part series on teaching AI. Here is a link to the page with the reading list. I’m happy she made this public.
Check out and read her blog: Punk Rock Operations Research
Finally, be sure to subscribe to and read her blog, Punk Rock Operations Research. It has many years of great content.