PhD Student Maher Said Wins Supply Chain Data Analytics Competition
Maher Said and his group (Emma Zajdela, applied mathematics PhD student, and Eugene Wickett, IEMS PhD student) participated in the 2nd Annual Loyola School of Business Supply Chain Data Analytics Competition (also hosted by NUTC this year) and won 1st place.
Competitors were provided with truck shipping data for 2018 and 2019 from two different companies in the industry, FreightWaves and Redwood. Using this data, competitors were tasked with providing insight on what factors affect prices for shipping by truck, as well as making forecasts for the year ahead for pricing. Said’s entry used correlation analysis, regressions and time-series analysis in order to identify these relationships and forecast for the year ahead.
The runners up to the competition included students from Prof. Hani Mahmassani’s research group.
Maher Said is a transportation PhD candidate in Prof. Amanda Stathopoulos’s group who is actively involved in research and teaching. He has worked on a multitude of projects and studies focusing on modeling, simulation and data analysis, with highlights such as choice modeling, structural equation modeling and benefit-cost analysis.