Meet the Team
Founder & Lead Analyst
Max erdemandI, phd
Max founded Rubrique Advisory Co. to help institutions to assess the impact of centered programs that enrich the college experience but sit outside the traditional assessment infrastructure built for degree programs. While these programs are often what sets the institution apart, their impact is rarely highlighted in institutional narratives.
A first-generation college graduate from a low-income and immigrant background, Max knows firsthand how these programs change lives. His formal training sits at a unique intersection: A PhD in Communication Science and Social Cognition, and an MS in Measurement, Statistics, and Evaluation, both from the University of Maryland, with an MA in Interdisciplinary Studies from Duke University. That pairing, expertise in survey methodology and measurement on one side and communication on the other, grounds the firm's approach to high-impact program assessment: define success metrics, collect high-quality data, conduct robust analyses, then tell the story to your key audiences.
Nearly a decade in federally funded research, Max administered over $5 million in research and educational portfolios for the U.S. Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, Defense, and State, leading cross-functional and international teams at Duke University and University of Maryland. An active educator and scholar, Max is an expert in quantitative methods and statistical inference, specifically content-independent survey biases, latent and mixture modeling, machine learning and computational social sciences, and LLM/AI evaluation. At Rubrique Advisory Co., he leads every engagement as the lead analyst, from data strategy and measurement design through statistical analysis and the full strategic communication messaging.
Qualitative Methodology & Communication Lead
Lahne mattas-curry, PhD
Lahne brings more than two decades of strategic communication experience across federal government, corporate, and nonprofit organizations. She most recently served as Communication Director for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Center for Environmental Solutions and Emergency Response, where she led risk and crisis communication for major environmental emergencies. In that role she built agency-wide expertise and served as a strategic advisor, alongside leading organizational and internal communication initiatives.
Her academic work matches the depth of her practice. Lahne holds a PhD in Public Relations and Strategic Communication from the University of Maryland, and continues to teach and conduct research. Lahne also has an MS in Marketing from the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, with executive training in Applied Risk Communication and Leadership During Crises from Harvard University. Lahne’s expertise lies in organizational relationships during crises, with a focus on community building, engagement, trust in institutions, access to accurate information, and crisis communication inside and outside the organization.
At Rubrique Advisory Co., Lahne anchors the narrative and stakeholder-communication side of the work, making sure the institutional stories clients tell stays clear, credible, in alignment with institutional objectives, and true to the evidence behind it.
Business Development & Strategy Lead
max groznik, PhD
Max brings an interdisciplinary background in organizational strategy, behavioral science, communication, and advanced analytics to Rubrique Advisory Co., where he leads business development and strategic growth. He works with organizations to identify the people, behavioral, communication, and organizational factors behind complex business challenges—and to develop engagements that turn those insights into actionable strategy.
Max holds a PhD in Communication from the University of Kentucky, with a cognate in Organizational Behavior and Network Analysis, and an MA in Communication Studies from San Diego State University. His training spans organizational behavior, behavioral science, translational research, network analysis, and advanced quantitative methods.
Max has particular expertise in analyzing complex organizational data where people and observations cannot be treated as independent. Organizations are networks of teams, relationships, repeated interactions, and shared environments, and conventional analytics can overlook those structures. Max applies network, relational, clustered, nested, and longitudinal approaches to identify the patterns and relationships that conventional analysis can miss.
His applied research experience spans multidisciplinary initiatives supported by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, National Institutes of Health, and National Cancer Institute. At the University of Kentucky’s Center for Health Engagement and Transformation, he worked across translational research initiatives addressing health equity, tobacco communication, patient and family communication, and behavioral outcomes. He has also served as a data analyst on an FDA-funded project examining tobacco marketing across social media, using large-scale behavioral and communication data to generate actionable research insights.
