During the trainee’s second year, trainees must complete one or two courses from a set of PEAR electives to build depth in a training track that covers either a particular domain or a methods area. These depth training tracks align with future career paths that span three methodological areas: Modeling and Algorithms, Economic and Policy Analysis, and Product Management and Platform-Based Business Model Innovation. The three practical domains include Urban Affairs, Environment, Energy, and Sustainability, and Healthcare Systems. We will discuss each training track in detail below:
Modeling and Algorithms
While innovations in mathematical modeling, machine learning, and the design of efficient algorithms have enabled the expansion of digital platform-based businesses, this workforce lacks interdisciplinary training to anticipate external social and environmental consequences.
Students in this depth area will be trained in:
-Development of data-driven decision support systems for more efficient planning, monitoring, and control services, both emerging and traditional
-Development of general methods to support the information infrastructure needs of the new services and the decision-making at various levels of detail
-Comprehensive evaluation of policy instruments
-Effective and efficient leverage of state-of-the-art analytical and ML algorithms
Economic and Policy Analysis
The public sector is struggling with the design and implementation of “next-generation” regulations that manage the platform economy, as it operates in dynamic ways that tend to circumvent traditional regulatory structures. Developing such regulations requires a deep understanding of both the digital platform economy and its operations as well as the potential distributional impacts. Students will be uniquely positioned to contribute to public policy efforts at the local, state, and federal levels, and digital platform companies seeking to navigate and negotiate the economic impacts of these policies. Moreover, with a growing awareness of the potential impacts on under-represented and vulnerable populations, students will be better placed for jobs in the non-profit sector to advocate for communities disrupted by the digital platform economy.
Product Management & Platform-Based Business Model Innovations and Algorithms
The increasing popularity of digital platform-based businesses has contributed to the growing demand for product managers who can build, launch, and manage platforms along with technology-enabled products. These managers must understand the dynamically changing needs, values, and behavior of multiple stakeholders interacting on digital platforms and lead cross-functional teams of data scientists, designers, engineers, and marketers to enable company growth by responding to the needs and balancing relevant disruptive impacts on society. Students in this track will have an opportunity to take a wide range of courses to acquire essential skills in analytics, marketing, product development, technical leadership, and user experience design.
Urban Affairs
Environmental and climate concerns, coupled with increasing urbanization, changing demographics, and demand for personal mobility, are straining the relationships between cities and companies promoting new platform-based service delivery paradigms. Part of the problem is the lack of methods to collect and process data that is needed to inform the discussion among the various stakeholders. PEAR will provide participants with the skills to develop socially responsible, environmentally conscious, and sustainable solutions.
Environmental, Energy, and Sustainability
Students will focus on the socio-technical complexities of energy innovation and climate change. They will be prepared to work in the rapidly changing energy sector, especially as legacy, centralized, fossil fuel-baed energy systems are transformed to more centralized, renewable-bassed systems that offer new kind of social, institional and technical configutations. The energy workforce of the future requires scientists and engineers to be trained to connect technical and social innovation, anticipate and manage consumer behavior, collaborate with diverse communities, and understand how energy systems impact the environment.
Healthcare Systems
Focuses on analysis, design, management, and control of health systems and processes that are critical to the future of quality healthcare delivery, including telehealth applications and digital platforms that match medical staff and equipment to patients, clinics, and other delivery sites. The future health system and policy designers need to be proficient in digital platform technologies that enable more effective and cost-efficient healthcare delivery along with ethics of resource allocation, accessibility and equity concerns, stakeholder behavior, and public health impacts.
