About ASR’s Founding Principals

ASR’s three founding principals began the company in 2004. During this time, they have led the company to be named one of the fastest growing companies in the Washington D.C. area; having been named to Washington Technology Magazine’s Fast 50. Today, they still stay actively engaged with clients in each of ASR’s practice areas.

Peter Arena, Ph.D. – Dr. Peter Arena has over 15 years of experience working in the fields of business intelligence, data warehousing, and data mining—with particular expertise in the application of quantitative techniques to practical problems of government, business, and higher education. His work experience and academic research spans the subject areas of survey research, statistical sampling, dimensional data modeling, and applied econometrics. He has held leadership positions with IBM and PricewaterhouseCoopers including positions on the Global Social Services Industry Market Teams for those companies. Dr. Arena has authored several best practices articles in the fields of business intelligence and analytic application development. Dr. Arena taught graduate level statistics and econometrics courses at George Mason University, where he also received his PhD in Public Policy. Dr. Arena also holds degrees from the University of Rochester (MS in Public Policy) and St. John Fisher College (BA in Economics).

Michael Stavrianos, M.P.P. - Mr. Stavrianos has 15 years of professional experience with data analysis, statistical modeling, survey research, and project management. He has particular expertise in policy applications of microsimulation modeling techniques — and in the use of simulation models to provide decision support for government clients. Over the past 10 years, he has supported a broad range of analytic consulting engagements for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), including 6 years managing a series of high-profile engagements for the IRS, which involved the collection and analysis of survey data from more than 15,000 individual taxpayers. His recent work in this area includes the design and administration of customer surveys for the IRS Office of Procurement; business process modeling for the IRS Office of Business Rules and Requirements Management; and analytical projects for the IRS Office of Research, Analysis, and Statistics. Mr. Stavrianos has been credentialed as a Project Management Professional (PMP) by the Project Management Institute—the preeminent professional credential for individuals associated with project management. He holds a Masters of Public Policy degree from Georgetown University and Bachelors degrees in Statistics and Spanish from Washington University in St. Louis.

Stephen Rhody, Ph. D. – Dr. Stephen Rhody combines a background in the economic and statistical analysis of business problems with experience designing and implementing management information systems using both Commercial-off-the-Shelf products and custom software. He has served as technical manager for a team of 10 java developers in a rapid application development environment, creating web applications with an average turnaround of one month from requirements gathering to initial launch. Dr. Rhody also has deep experience in predictive analytics and statistical modeling, and serves as an economic advisor to a major philanthropic organization regarding prospective and ongoing research projects in several areas of public policy. Dr. Rhody holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Syracuse University and a B.A. in Quantitative Economics from Stanford University.

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