Computational Mathematics majorAssociate Director of Strategy Advancement, Humana
Cali Runtas ’14, a computational mathematics major, is now an Associate Director of Strategy Advancement at the health-insurance company, Humana, in Louisville, Ky.
At Humana, Runtas runs a team of analytics-centered employees working to forecast, track and grow the pharmacy business.
“My team and I joke that we sit at the intersection of science and art because of how much creativity is required to solve many of our problems,” said Runtas. “I really love being at that intersection with them.”
While in grad school, she stumbled upon Humana’s entry level analytics job and has stayed in the field ever since, now serving the company with a role mixture of data science, business strategy and leadership.
Runtas explained that her foundational understanding of business skills started at Asbury.
“The Asbury math department did a fantastic job of teaching us how to learn for ourselves, which seemed to have set AU Math grads apart compared to our colleges when we first entered the work force,” said Runtas.
More specifically, an Asbury programming course in the Math Department solidified her mathematical principles.
“The amount that I struggled with my first C++ course made me (along with most of the class) a Google & stack overflow ninja, which is at least half the requirement of any programming job.” Runtas continues, “Professor Searls taught us how to struggle through solving problems without feeling like we had enough direction. As frustrating as it was at the time, it’s something I’m very thankful for now — he definitely deserves a shout-out. Mere mortals count from one, God and computer scientists count from 0, after all.”
Her advice to current students:
“During my time at Asbury the professors truly cared about the students as people and made difficult classes really, really fun,” she prefaced. “Take full advantage of your time with your professors, learn everything you can from them.”