{"id":226535,"date":"2026-03-06T10:31:35","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T15:31:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/?p=226535"},"modified":"2026-03-06T10:31:39","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T15:31:39","slug":"get-to-know-nc-states-bill-rand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/2026\/03\/06\/get-to-know-nc-states-bill-rand\/","title":{"rendered":"Get to Know NC State’s Bill Rand"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n

Bill Rand<\/a>, the McLauchlan Distinguished Professor of Marketing and Analytics at the Poole College of Management and the Goodnight Executive Director of the Institute for Advanced Analytics (IAA)<\/a>, was interviewed by IAA student Jarrel Horton. Rand spoke about how he came to lead the IAA, outlined the rapid changes in AI and what his life looks like outside of NC State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asked about his professional background, he says that his undergraduate degree is in computer science but, \u201cWhen I went to grad school in AI, I realized that I wasn\u2019t really interested in improving algorithms or focusing on precision\/recall metrics. I was more interested in whether these tools could help solve problems that hadn\u2019t been solved.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was encouraged to apply his expertise to business schools, \u201cand eventually I ended up teaching in marketing, where I was doing analytics and data science before those terms were widely used.\u201d He spent around two decades in that field. \u201cSo when my dean asked if I\u2019d be interested in taking on the directorship here, it felt like a natural fit. Given my background in AI and applied analytics, it seemed like a place where I could help take the program to the next level.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rand heavily emphasizes the importance of using AI as a teammate and a collaborator, but he stresses that interpersonal and social-emotional skills will be more important than ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAI isn\u2019t good at understanding how humans relate to each other. A data scientist needs to think about how their work will be perceived … say, a pricing policy that might affect different customer groups. How will customers talk to each other about it? How will it be received? Thinking about the human side is going to be really important.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can read the full interview on Data Column<\/a>, the IAA\u2019s student blog.<\/p>\n","protected":false,"raw":"\n\n\n\n\n

Bill Rand<\/a>, the McLauchlan Distinguished Professor of Marketing and Analytics at the Poole College of Management and the Goodnight Executive Director of the Institute for Advanced Analytics (IAA)<\/a>, was interviewed by IAA student Jarrel Horton. Rand spoke about how he came to lead the IAA, outlined the rapid changes in AI and what his life looks like outside of NC State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asked about his professional background, he says that his undergraduate degree is in computer science but, \u201cWhen I went to grad school in AI, I realized that I wasn\u2019t really interested in improving algorithms or focusing on precision\/recall metrics. I was more interested in whether these tools could help solve problems that hadn\u2019t been solved.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was encouraged to apply his expertise to business schools, \u201cand eventually I ended up teaching in marketing, where I was doing analytics and data science before those terms were widely used.\u201d He spent around two decades in that field. \u201cSo when my dean asked if I\u2019d be interested in taking on the directorship here, it felt like a natural fit. Given my background in AI and applied analytics, it seemed like a place where I could help take the program to the next level.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rand heavily emphasizes the importance of using AI as a teammate and a collaborator, but he stresses that interpersonal and social-emotional skills will be more important than ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAI isn\u2019t good at understanding how humans relate to each other. A data scientist needs to think about how their work will be perceived ... say, a pricing policy that might affect different customer groups. How will customers talk to each other about it? How will it be received? Thinking about the human side is going to be really important.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can read the full interview on Data Column<\/a>, the IAA\u2019s student blog.<\/p>\n"},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a student-led interview, the Poole College professor and Goodnight Executive Director of the NC State Institute for Advanced Analytics details his academic journey and goals for AI education.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39405,"featured_media":226536,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"ncst\/default-post-header","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"{\"displayCategoryID\":28,\"showAuthor\":true,\"showDate\":true,\"showFeaturedVideo\":false,\"subtitle\":\"In a student-led interview, the Poole College professor and Goodnight Executive Director of the NC State Institute for Advanced Analytics details his academic journey and goals for AI education.\"}","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","ncst_content_audit_display":false,"ncst_backToTopFlag":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2148,28,2151,2149,286],"tags":[1506,754,966,42,2080],"_ncst_magazine_issue":[],"class_list":["post-226535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ai","category-faculty-and-staff","category-information-technology-analytics-and-operations","category-marketing","category-newswire","tag-ai","tag-analytics","tag-bill-rand","tag-faculty","tag-institute-for-advanced-analytics"],"displayCategory":{"term_id":28,"name":"Faculty and Staff","slug":"faculty-and-staff","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":28,"taxonomy":"category","description":"Get to know our Poole Pack, the dedicated faculty and staff who drive our community forward. Explore their recent achievements, professional milestones and the work shaping our college.","parent":1811,"count":532,"filter":"raw"},"acf":{"ncst_posts_meta_modified_date":null},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226535"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":226553,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226535\/revisions\/226553"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226535"},{"taxonomy":"_ncst_magazine_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_ncst_magazine_issue?post=226535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}