Four Chapman faculty members have set out to uncover new opportunities for societal impact by examining and analyzing large amounts of data.

Dr. Hesham M. El-Askary  hopes to stabilize the relationship between extreme weather and resulting outages, ultimately resulting in higher customer satisfaction.

Dr. Jennifer Hahn-Holbrook seeks to identify Orange County at-risk mothers and their children and determine why these mothers aren’t participating in no-cost health care programs.

Another researcher, Dr. Erik Linstead, will be assisting board-certified behavior analysts in providing more tailored and effective treatment plans to children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Lastly, Dr. Abel Winn is dedicated to improving electromagnetic spectrum auctions to enable the growth of mobile computing and the ability to send and receive data on your smartphone.

The common denominator between these four Chapman faculty members is that they are all utilizing data analytics to achieve their research objectives.


While many would argue that analytics is nothing new, the world of data analytics is constantly progressing in the extensive amount and types of data generated, the availability of tools to analyze the data, and the lowered cost of computing power. Chapman University is particularly excited about its role in developing this new opportunity.

The Kay Family Foundation generously donated $2.5 million to Chapman University to fund research, projects and activities in the field of data analytics (also referred to as big data).  The gift is targeted to support applied analytics research that impacts business and society.

“This generous donation will drive innovation in the critical area of Data Analytics, which is causing enormous shifts in both the business world and society at large,” said Argyros School dean Reggie Gilyard. “It will provide faculty, students and potentially alumni with resources that enable discovery and impact through the analysis of sizeable data sets.”

Faculty from six of Chapman’s ten schools and colleges submitted 17 grant proposals, and four were selected from the first tranche of money. The projects chosen seek to impact challenges in public health, climate change, economic policy and autism.

“We envision the Kay Data Analytics Fund as a means to strategically supplement critical existing research and talent across many different disciplines at Chapman,” said Elim Kay, President and Board Member of Kay Family Foundation. “This is an opportunity to identify niche areas around which clusters of excellence can be built to have real-world impact.”

The Kay Family Data Analytics Fund will continue to foster Chapman University’s leadership role in the development of data analytics research and educational programs and inspire opportunities to deliver real world impact.

For more information on the 2016 grant winners and to learn about their projects, please visit the website.