Grace Haaf

Biography

Grace Haaf returned to New York University in September 2025 as a Clinical Associate Professor in the Stern School of Business Department of Technology, Operations, and Statistics. Previously she was a business analytics professor at NYU’s Shanghai campus, teaching statistics, business and marketing analytics for undergraduates and master’s students. Grace’s recent research interest applies decision theory to the characterization, detection, and response-prediction of agents operating within mixed human-algorithm environments (game theory for AI).

Prior to NYU Stern, most recently Grace was a rapid evaluator at Google X—a hybrid business and engineering role leading early-stage product conceptualization and prototyping for Alphabet’s next 100-billion-dollar moonshots. Additionally, she has 10+ years of industry experience as a practicing analytics consultant and data scientist. She specializes in analytics program strategy and implementation across startups and mature multinational corporations with a focus on designing research programs, operationalizing analytical models, and structuring analytics organizations. While at McKinsey, she wrote and delivered the firm’s first internal training program for advanced analytics consultants and post-departure returned as an advisor for McKinsey’s development of an analytics training bootcamp for Fortune 500 clients.

Research Interests

• Human-AI joint decision making
• Decision-making under uncertainty
• Business, technology, and product design integration management

Courses Taught

• Business Analytics
• Databases for Business Analytics
• Marketing Analytics
• Projects in Programming
• Statistics for Business and Economics

Academic Background

Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering, 2014
Carnegie Mellon University

M.S., Mechanical Engineering, 2012
Carnegie Mellon University

B.S., Mechanical Engineering, 2008
Northwestern University