Page 20 | Thursday, April 28, 2022
Old Gold & Black | Graduation
MATHEMATICAL BUSINESS
NOAH EDWARDS-THRO COOPER SULLIVAN Multimedia Managing Editor
Katie Fox/Old Gold & Black
Like many children who were dissuaded from watching Disney Channel, Noah EdwardsThro’s favorite programming came from a Disney Co. subsidiary — ESPN. Growing up in Lexington, KY, Edwards-Thro was a big Kentucky Wildcats fan. But if the blue-blooded basketball team wasn’t on the television that night, he was fine with any other ballgame. Playing since the age of eight, Edwards-Thro carried that love of basketball to Wake Forest, where he became a student manager for the women’s team during his freshman year. It was the basketball court that opened his eyes to the world of data analytics. Edwards-Thro came into college as an intended finance major but went to an info session during his first year that quickly changed his mind. “I learned that the average first-year, secondyear analyst works like 80 to 90 hours a week,” Edwards-Thro said. “I was like, ‘not going to do that. I’m just not.’” One of his old friends was a mathematical business major and showed Edwards-Thro what the subject really was. Then, Edwards-Thro was thrust into the growing world of sports analytics and data science. Nowadays, many professional teams use analytics to improve their team’s skill in the most cost-beneficial way — Moneyball, but make it mainstream — and this change has expanded into the collegiate levels. “Working for the women’s basketball team made me realize that sports and data not only could be combined, but that they should be combined,” Edwards-Thro said. “It was really cool for me to see our team tangibly improve because of some of the recommendations that I brought to the coaching staff.” Edwards-Thro’s thesis even centered around basketball analytics, “NBA Player Clustering using Gaussian Mixture Modeling”. Even with the intimidating title, you don’t have to be Billy Beane to get the gist.
Edwards-Thro argues that the five-position system basketball operates under is a thing of the past and that coaches, general managers, and award voters should break the players into more skill-oriented categories. He then uses these new distinctions like the ball-dominant scorer (Damian Lillard) or the mid-range big (Dirk Nowitzki) to recognize trends in the NBA and how roster-building around this new position mindset leads to championships. Dr. Lucy D’Agostino McGowan has had Edward-Thro in three of her statistics courses and was his senior thesis advisor. “I’ve been so impressed by his ability to independently synthesize the literature, his technical acumen, and his capacity to communicate complex statistical concepts to various audiences,” D’Agostino McGowan said. “[His thesis] was a perfect topic for Noah combining a complex modeling technique with a practical application.” Edwards-Thro has been looking to work at an independent consulting firms, saying that while working for a specific team would be cool, there is a lot less free time outside the organization. The summer before senior year, he interned for the Chicago-based company Stats Perform and he will return to a similar position post-graduation. He will be working for the company remotely as he simultaneously obtains his master’s in data science from the University of Virginia. He won’t be in Charlottesville, however. Edwards-Thro’s fiance, Amber Adkins (see page 24), will be conducting psychology research at Wake Forest Baptist the next two years, so the soon-to-be-wed couple will remain in Winston-Salem. And although his time in Winston-Salem is not over yet, Edwards-Thro will still be missing the simple moments of being on the Reynolda campus. “The best days are just the ones where you’re out on the quad doing work, playing spike ball, throwing the football,” Edwards-Thro reminisced. “You know those days where it’s just simple. When life is not complicated and there’s a simplicity to being with other people.”
MATHEMATICAL ECONOMICS
DAVID LI
CHRISTA DUTTON News Editor David Li became interested in economics when he picked up the book “Freakonomics” and started listening to its accompanying podcast of the same name. One particular story in “Freakonomics” that was of great interest to Li was a story of why Roe v. Wade, which barred states from criminalizing abortion, was connected to a dramatic decrease in crime in major American cities in the 1990s. Economists discovered that because women were given the right to choose, they were more likely to only give birth if they were ready, thus decreasing the number of children born into disadvantaged situations that would make them more prone to committing crimes. “[‘Freakonomics’] looks at problems in our world in a completely different light,” Li said. Li added: “That out-of-the-box thinking could really change a lot of things in our society. So that is the kind of a story that drew me into [mathematical economics]”. Li has been interested in economics since high school but chose to major in mathematical economics because of how the discipline can explain the human mind and solve problems. “I like how through economics, you can understand why people make certain decisions,” Li said. “Psychology studies the more explicit side of it, and mathematical economics incorporates math and numbers into why people make certain decisions.” Dr. Frederick Chen, associate professor of economics at Wake Forest, has had Li in two classes. He described Li as analytical, creative, determined and resourceful. “One time in a mathematical economics class, I mentioned that one of the problems I had given the students is so hard that a former student of mine who is a professor at West Point now still remembers it 10 or 15 years Katie Fox/Old Gold & Black after graduating from Wake Forest,” Chen said.
“David managed to track down this former student and ask her if she could give him some hint on an assignment. I found out about it only because my former student texted me to ask if it was okay.” This out-of-the-box thinking has benefited Li in another one of Chen’s classes as well. “David is not afraid to think outside the box,” Chen said. “He and his partner for a group project in my game theory class came up with a method that I had never seen before to visualize and analyze a certain type of game. I am going to steal their idea and use it in my future teaching for sure.” Li’s innovative thinking will also help him in his future plans to bioengineer drought-resistant plants, a research project he started with the Biology Department at Wake Forest and will continue while attending graduate school at the University of Washington at St. Louis, where he will earn his Ph.D. in Biochemistry. “I’m excited to do more research,” Li said. “We live in a world where we don’t really know how most things work. Very few of us take the time to think about how the world works.” He hopes to spend his future being a person who does think about how the world works. “In my future, I think I’m going to be a researcher, whether in academia or industry, and I’m excited to figure things out and see my brain be challenged,” Li said. “Figuring complex concepts out has been some of the most rewarding processes I’ve ever had in my life. To be able to do that professionally full time is something exciting.” He is confident that the skills he has developed in the Mathematical Economics major will serve him well in the future even though he is pursuing further education in his other major. “I know how to think about things in a mathematical way, I know how dynamic modeling works and I know how humans interact because of behavioral economics,” Li said. “Those are skills that can really help people — not only in economics — but in life in general.”
