Purushottam Papatla, PhD, Kellogg School, Northwestern University

Papatla can talk about the potential of using data science to analyze social media as another way to measure public opinion in an election campaign. Papatla is a professor of marketing at UW-Milwaukee and co-director of the Northwestern Mutual Data Science Institute. He helps to oversee the institute's Elecurator project, which uses a variety of data sources, including online and social media, traditional polling methods and political advertisements, to determine what issues are on the minds of voters. This big data look at voter behavior can help drive online strategies and outreach by candidates. Papatla also can speak about marketing and advertising trends, including why Instagram posts by consumers can affect how other consumers respond to brands, and how consumers engage with brands on social media platforms like Facebook.