Decision Making and Uncertainty
Posted onDecision Making and Uncertainty
Spring 2022 Long Program
Economics, finance, and business activities like marketing, operations management, and R&D all substantially rely on the use of formal, mathematical approaches to model human behavior, agents’ interaction, trading exchanges, mitigation of risks, and more. However, these areas are all rich enough that many important challenges are as yet unmet and new ones are constantly arising. For example, recent advances in data science, new platforms and means of human interaction, the growing speed of trading exchanges and flow of information, and various technological and other breakthroughs are all fertile ground motivating the use of new mathematical and statistical models and methods.
The mathematical sciences can play a crucial role by providing a platform on which to build and analyze innovative and complex models and as well as rigorous frameworks to solve the associated problems. However, this alone is not enough to make breakthrough progress. An intense scientific dialogue is needed so that the analysis of real-world problems may benefit from mathematical and statistical innovations, while, at the same time, the discipline and focus provided by such problems may help the mathematics from becoming remote from the real-world challenges. The intention of this program is to create and facilitate such an interdisciplinary dialogue by bringing together mathematicians, statisticians, economists, computer scientists, and researchers from operations research and business.