Four RSG staff members, Senior Director, Nelson Whipple; Senior Consultant, Jeff Dumont; and Consultants, Jeff Keller and Katlin Gnojek, will be part of the judging panel at the 2014 Vermont State Science & Math Fair (VSSMF) held at Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont. The VSSMF is open to all middle and high school students in the state of Vermont and project topics span all areas of science, technology, engineering, and math. For the second year RSG will award $200 to the student whose project best identifies an opportunity to apply mathematics, science, or statistics to understand human behavior. This is RSG’s fifth year as a corporate sponsor of the VSSMF.

RSG Analyst, Tristan Cherry, returned to his alma mater, Concordia University in Montreal, to discuss RSG’s transportation market research techniques with undergraduate and graduate students in Dr. Zack Patterson’s Analyzing Choice class. Students in Dr. Patterson’s class spend the semester designing, implementing, and reporting on the results of a stated preference survey related to an environmental or transportation issue. Tristan’s presentation focused on RSG’s transportation market research work and provided students with real world examples of toll and transit market research practices.

RSG Director, Dan Weinstein, will present, “Forecasting Adoption of Alternative Vehicle Powertrains Using Discrete Choice Methods,” at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on March 19th as part of the Transportation at MIT seminar series. Dan’s presentation will focus on discrete choice modeling techniques and how they can be used to help automotive manufacturers and suppliers quantify the trade-offs that consumers make between vehicle attributes.

A peer-reviewed journal article co-authored by RSG Director, Steve Lawson, RSG Senior Advisor, Peter Newman, and others, was published in the latest issue of Leisure Sciences. The article, titled “Photograph Presentation Order and Range Effects in Visual-Based Outdoor Recreation Research,” explores potential biases in visual-based recreation research. Visual-based research refers to the use of computer-edited images and/or other visual representations to simulate conditions in recreation settings and is one of the most widely applied methods to assess the social acceptability of visitor experience and resource conditions.

The work of RSG Senior Advisor and Tuck School of Business professor, Scott Neslin, is featured in Tuck’s Winter Forum. The article titled “Does Doing Good Mean Doing Well?” outlines Scott and colleagues’ work to determine whether consumers' feelings about corporate social responsibility have caused them to be more loyal. The full research findings will be published in the International Journal of Research in Marketing.

RSG Director, Steve Lawson, gave a seminar to graduate students and faculty from Penn State University’s Department of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management program on Friday, March 8. Steve’s seminar included an overview of RSG and examples of our work with the National Park Service. The event was organized by RSG Senior Advisor, Peter Newman, who was recently named head of the Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Management, and Penn State University graduate student Mike Ferguson.

RSG Senior Director, Peter Plumeau, was recently named to the national expert panel responsible for overseeing a new Transportation Research Board (TRB) project, “Strategies for Maintaining Air Service.” This project will explore strategies being implemented by smaller and medium-sized airports, their communities, and local businesses to reduce costs of services to carriers in order to maintain air service. The panel will help researchers identify and outline successful programs and activities that airports are undertaking to retain air service, including what is known or uncertain about their effectiveness over time.

Voters attending Hartland, Vermont’s Town Meeting recently voted to spend up to $450,000 to move forward with a plan proposed by RSG to realign the town’s main intersection, Hartland Three Corners. The proposed realignment plan will simplify the overall intersection, increase safety and mobility for pedestrians by adding crosswalks across all approaches, and create a significant increase in green space at the intersection. Final design will likely proceed in 2014, with construction starting as soon as 2015.

RSG Vice President, Kevin Hathaway, will present, “Effective Data Displays for Medical Research,” as part of the Grand Rounds lecture series at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Grand Rounds lectures provide medical professionals and students with a chance to improve their knowledge and keep up to date on areas of study which may be outside their core practice or field.

RSG's Dan Weinstein, Marc Aquila and Jeff Dumont were guest presenters at the “Advanced Business Analytics” course at the Tuck School of Business yesterday. The RSG team provided Tuck students with data and questions based on a real project. During the class, the RSG team led a discussion of the students' analytical and data visualization approaches. RSG is honored to collaborate with Tuck faculty and students.