Published: April 1, 2025
Welcome to the latest in our special series of Resoundingly Human podcasts highlighting the finalist teams for the 2025 Franz Edelman Award, the Nobel Prize of Analytics, which will be awarded at the upcoming 2025 INFORMS Analytics+ Conference in Indianapolis this April.
These finalist projects represent teams from around the world who have leveraged advanced analytics to transform their organizations, address their most significant challenges, and better serve their customers and communities. Today I’m joined by members of the team representing USA Cycling to discuss their finalist project in the lead-up to the Franz Edelman competition.
When you try to apply traditional analytics and operations research into the human area, into human physiology, there’s a lot of places where you find that humans aren’t machines, they’re not widgets, they’re not mechanical pieces of equipment that just fit nicely in a box that you can just model perfectly. A lot of times when you’re looking at modeling a human, it’s quite a bit different, so when you’re building out these models, or building out these data analytics, that’s one thing you have to take into consideration, how different every person is compared to the next person.
Interviewed this episode:
Jim Miller
USA Cycling
A successful professional cyclist in his own right, Jim coached several cyclists on the side and eventually retired from racing in 1999 to focus solely on his flourishing coaching career. After developing several notable cyclists, he originally came to USA Cycling to run the women’s road program in 2002. After earning Coach of the Year distinctions from the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee in 2003 & 2004, Jim was promoted to director of endurance programs, overseeing the development of American junior, U23, and women endurance athletes in road and track cycling. After making significant strides toward the USA Cycling National Development Program’s goal of developing the next generation of American cyclists, he was named Vice President of Athletics in 2010. In 2017, Jim left USA Cycling to become the Vice President of Business Development for Training Peaks. Unable to resist the Olympic call, he returned to USA Cycling in 2020 as the Chief of Sport Performance. He has earned the International Olympic Committee’s highest honor for coaches, the Order of Ikkos, three times, all for coaching 3-time Olympic Champion Kristen Armstrong to victory.
Ryan Cooper
USA Cycling
Ryan Cooper is USA Cycling’s Senior Data Analyst. USA Cycling is the national governing body for the sport of cycling in the United States and oversees the disciplines of road, track, mountain bike, cyclocross, and BMX.
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Episode Transcript
Transcript pending.
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Tags: Franz Edelman Award, Olympics, USA Cycling