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Forecasting Impact is a bimonthly podcast that aims to disseminate the science and practice of forecasting by introducing prominent academics, practitioners, and visionaries in the forecasting domain. Our vision is to help grow the forecasting community, foster collaboration between academia, industry, and governments, and promote scientific forecasting and good practices.
We will discuss a range of forecasting topics in economics, supply chain, energy, social goods, AI, data analytics, education, healthcare, and more.
Forecasting Impact episodes are also available on the IIF YouTube Channel @IIForecasters.
Podcast Team
Chair and Co-host: Dr. Laila Ahadi-Akhlaghi, Senior Technical Advisor at JSI
Additional co-hosts:
- Dr. Mahdi Abolghasemi, Lecturer in Data Science at The University of Queensland
- George Boretos, Founder & CEO at FutureUP
- Dr. Faranak Golestaneh, Data Science Senior Manager at Commonwealth Bank of Australia
- Mariana Menchero, Senior Forecaster at Nixtla, and
- Arian Sultan Khan, Data Analyst at VAN
Co-hosts in the past have included: Michał Chojnowski, Shari De Baets, Elaine Deschamps, Dr. Sevvandi Kandanaarachchi, Bahman Rostami-Tabar, Anna Sroginis and Sarah Van der Auweraer.
We welcome your feedback, questions, and suggestions. Please contact us at forecastingimpact@forecasters.org
PODCASTS
New Episode Food Bank Forecasting with Professor Lauren B. Davis
This episode of Forecasting Impact features Professor Lauren B. Davis discussing her research on applying stochastic modeling and forecasting to food bank operations. Lauren shares how she began forecasting with a local food bank, which led her to focus on forecasting the highly uncertain supply of food donations. She details the food banks’ donation sourcing process, the management of their supply chains, and the application of models like exponential smoothing, support vector regression, and ensemble methods to predict donation volumes.
Professor Davis addresses challenges in forecasting at various aggregation levels (network vs. location-specific), using optimization models for equitable allocation of limited supply, and the significance of storage and agency capacity limits. She emphasizes the importance of equity as an objective, the complexity of modeling true demand, and the crucial role of visual analytics and co-design with food bank partners. The episode underscores the practical impact of forecasting in humanitarian supply chains and the necessity of linking models with operational decisions.
2025
Rami Krispin, data scientist at Apple
Harrison Mariki, founder of Afya Intelligence, and Danielson Kennedy Onyango, inSupply Health
2024
Jan Kleissl, University of California, San Diego
Hema Srinivasan, Senior Advisor at MedAccess
Azul Garza Ramírez, Cofounder of Nixtla, and Mononito Goswami, Developer of MOMENT
Kai Markus Mueller, Professor of Consumer Behavior at Furtwangen University
Mitchell O’Hara-Wild, Data Scientist
Joannes Vermorel, Founder and CEO at Lokad
Laurent Ferrara, Professor of International Economics at SKEMA Business School
Eric Siegel, Consultant
2023
Michele Trovero, leader of the Forecasting R&D group at SAS, and Spiros Potamitis, Data Scientist and Product Marketing Manager at SAS
Martie-Louise Verreynne, University of Queensland
David Schmitt, Insight Transportation Consulting, Inc.
Stephan Kolassa (SAP), Bahman Rostami-Tabar (Cardiff Univ), and Enno Siemsen (Univ of Wisconsin)
Priyanga Dilini Talagala, University of Moratuwa, and Thiyanga Talagala, University of Sri Jayewardenepura
George Athanasopoulos, Monash University
Forecasting Software Panel (Rob Hyndman, Federico Garaz, and Eric Stellwagen)
Eric Siegel, Consultant
Scott Cunningham, University of Strathclyde
Tao Hong, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
2022
Galit Shmueli, National Tsing Hua University
Ataman Ozyildirim, The Conference Board
Nikolaos Kourentzes, University of Skövde
Polly Mitchell-Guthrie, Kinaxis
Trevor Sidery, Tesco PLC
Jim Hoover, University of Florida
Len Tashman, Founding editor of Foresight
Jennifer Castle, Oxford University
Evangelos Spiliotis, National Technical University of Athens
Paul Goodwin, University of Bath
Elaine Deschamps, Washington State Caseload Forecast Council
John Boylan, Lancaster University and Aris Syntetos, Cardiff University
2021
Anne Robinson, Kinaxis
Feng Li, Central University of Finance and Economics
Nada Sanders, Northeastern University
Pierre Pinson, Technical University of Denmark
Bahman Rostami-Tabar, Cardiff University
Michael Gilliland, SAS
George Athanasopoulos and Pam Stroud, Monash University & IIF
Spyros Makridakis, University of Nicosia
Stephan Kolassa, SAP AG
Gloria Gonzalez-Rivera, University of California
Robert Fildes, Lancaster University
Rob Hyndman, Monash University