At the heart of operations research, analytics, data science, and all the related fields, is the desire to improve the world around us, transforming data and information into insight and action, from simple business operations decisions to contributions that improve the quality of life, and even save lives, in communities across the globe.  And within this podcast, we strive to acknowledge and highlight the incredible contributions of INFORMS members, and their passion for tackling the most significant and complex problems facing our world today. Joining me for this episode to discuss his work in combatting an unfortunately pervasive issue throughout U.S. history, violence directed at minority populations categorized as hate crimes, is Matthew Matlack. Matthew, a technology sales professional based in Tulsa, OK, recently shared his insight at the Virtual 2021 INFORMS Business Analytics Conference, with his presentation, “Combatting Prejudice and Discrimination: Regression Modeling and Analysis for Hate Crimes,” and his work will again be featured in the June 2021 issue of OR/MS Today magazine, in an article titled “Educating a Bias Society: Using Hate Crime Data to Inform and Define Future Policy in the U.S.” In addition to exploring the important insight gained and the opportunities for impact identified by his work, in this episode we’ll be discussing an upcoming event in Matthew’s hometown of Tulsa that commemorates the 100-year anniversary a tragic incident in the history of hate crimes in the U.S. that has fueled Matthew’s passion for his work.