MPC team places 2nd in Master Modeler Competition

Community News

Foundation, people, award
 
The MPC team placed 2nd in the competition, earning a $2,000 prize.
 
  • Marathon Petroleum’s Clean Products Value Chain employees placed second in the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) 2023 Master Modeler Competition.
  • The multilevel, multidisciplinary competition invited individuals and teams from academia and practitioners with expertise in data science and analytics to develop a solution to help the nonprofit National Center for Housing and Child Welfare.
  • The team earned a $2,000 prize, which they donated back to the nonprofit.

Last month, Marathon Petroleum’s Clean Products Value Chain (CPVC) employees Sara Tobe, Greg Zerr, Courtney Wrasman and Everett Dutton took their problem-solving skills to the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) 2023 Master Modeler Competition. This year’s challenge involved helping the non-profit organization National Center for Housing and Child Welfare (NCHCW).

A snapshot of the HomeSafe dashboard the team created to identify locations where NCHCW should focus funding.

“It’s a data science competition that challenges participants to develop and deploy advanced analytic models to solve complex business problems,” said Sara Tobe, one of the Certified Analytics Professionals (CAP) on the Data Analytics & Strategy team in CPVC. “This was an exciting opportunity for us to showcase our skills and solve an urgent need while living out MPC’s values to collaborate, actively partner with our communities and make a positive difference together.”

“This was an exciting opportunity for us to showcase our skills and solve an urgent need while living out MPC’s values.”

The multilevel, multidisciplinary competition tasked individuals and teams from academia and practitioners with expertise in data science and analytics to develop a data science solution that would assist the NCHCW in helping families stay together and secure shelter during tough times, reduce homelessness among youth, and improve foster care.

“The first part of our solution included performing a clustering analysis on factors related to families, housing attributes, and related governmental resources,” said Tobe. “These results showed us counties with high, medium and low impact, clearly outlining counties to focus on. Additionally, we developed a return-on-investment tool that showed NCHCW how many children they could positively impact based on how much money they could provide, advocating for effective change.”

The team presented their data and analytics approach and results to the competition judges at Technology Association of Georgia.

The team deployed their solution featuring a Tableau Public dashboard to show all of the information in a clear and succinct manner, quickly identifying locations to focus on for funding and outlining how impactful these changes could be. This approach allowed policy makers and advocates to interact with the data and use it to support their efforts on behalf of children at risk for homelessness.

Team MPC presented their final project on March 31 at the TAG Data Science & Analytics society event and finished second in the multi-round competition. The team earned a $2,000 prize, which they donated back to NCHCW and received a company donation from MPC for a combined grant of $4,000.

Clean Products Value Chain employees Greg Zerr, Sara Tobe, Courtney Wrasman and Everett Dutton competed at the 2023 Master Modeler Competition in March.