Scott Nestler is a business analytics and data science “pracademic” (practitioner-academic). Previously, he was Director, Research & Development, as well as Principal Data Scientist and Optimization Lead, at SumerSports. Prior to that, he was Director, Statistics & Modeling at Accenture Federal Services. Before moving to industry, he was the Academic Director of the MS in Business Analytics program and remains an Adjunct Associate Teaching Professor in the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame.

He earned a PhD in Business and Management (Management Science and Statistics, with a minor in Finance) from the University of Maryland. He holds two Masters degrees — a MS in Applied Mathematics and Operations Research from the Naval Postgraduate School and a MSS (Strategic Studies) from the U.S. Army War College. He is also a graduate of Lehigh University with a BS in Civil Engineering.

Scott retired from the U.S. Army as a Colonel. In his last assignment, he served as Director of Strategic Analytics at the Center for Army Analysis, an internal Army think tank. Scott’s other tours of duty include assignments as an Assistant Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School; Director of the Center for Data Analysis and Statistics at West Point; Chief of Strategic Assessments at the US Embassy—Baghdad; Force Structure Analyst in the Pentagon; and Director of Computer Operations at West Point. Scott won the Barchi Prize from the Military Operations Research Society and was recognized by INFORMS with the Volunteer Award (Gold Level). Scott has earned and maintains the Certified Analytics Professional (CAP) and Accredited Professional Statistician (PStat) certifications. He served as the inaugural Chair of the Analytics Certification Board for the CAP program at INFORMS. Scott has published numerous articles and is co-author (with Wayne Winston and Kostas Pelechrinis) of the book “Mathletics.”