Committees

A Word from the Chair

As we move into Industry 4.0, the phrase “Data is the new oil” has significant meaning, and everyone in both industry and academia are embracing data analytics in all aspects of life. There is a greater need for all of us to go from Data to Insight to Value. INFORMS Business Analytics is one of the premier conferences, and provides a great forum for 1,000+ leading analytics and industry professionals to share ideas, network, and learn about the possibilities that can be generated by analytics.

Austin, capital of Texas, is the fastest growing large city in the United States and the live music capital of the world! It will be the host city for our 2019 INFORMS Business Analytics Conference. JW Marriott, situated in the heart of the city, will be the conference venue, and we are sure the conference attendees will enjoy the hospitality of the Marriott and the warmth of the city of Austin.

We invite you to join us and be part of this leading conference in April 2019 in Austin, TX!

– Mani Janakiram, PhD

General Chair

Mani Janakiram, PhD

Senior Director, Supply Chain
Intelligence & Analytics, GSM
Intel Corporation

INFORMS Member since 2004

Mani Janakiram is with Intel for 19 years and has managed several strategic projects in factory operations, capacity planning, process control, analytics, strategy, supplier management, IOT, factory science and supply chain. His 25 years of experience includes Automotive and Aerospace industries. Prior to Intel, he worked at Honeywell and Motorola in operations, strategy, systems, analytics, manufacturing, research, planning, etc. He is located in Gilbert, AZ.

Mani has two patents and has published 75+ papers on supply chain, statistical modeling, capacity modeling, data mining, Lean Six Sigma, factory operations research and process control. Mani is an adjunct professor at Arizona State University, school of Supply Chain/Business and is also a visiting lecturer at MIT’s Center for Transportation & Logistics. He is an accomplished speaker and also serves on several committees including, AZ Tech Council, ASU Network Value Chain, MIT CTL, Informs, APICS, CSMCP, etc. Mani holds a PhD in Industrial & Systems Engineering from Arizona State University and an MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management. He is a recognized Six Sigma Master Black Belt and also an APICS certified supply chain professional (CSCP). Recently he was recognized by Drexel University and CIO.com as one of the Top 50 Analytics Executives.

Organizing Committee

Zahir Balaporia, CAP

Optimization Solutions Partner
FICO

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Joining the FICO team in 2015, Zahir helps clients design solutions for their advanced analytics needs, with a focus on optimization, analytics deployment and change management. He brings 20 years of experience in manufacturing, transportation, logistics and IT, having recently led the advanced analytics team within a $4B company. His work was profiled in the book Only Humans Need Apply – Winners and Losers in the Age of Smart Machines by Tom Davenport and Julia Kirby. Zahir has a BS in Computer Engineering, an MS in Industrial Engineering, and an MS in System Dynamics.

Tudor Bodea

Advisor
Analytics, Strategy, Execution

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Tudor Bodea is an independent advisor who covers strategy and execution in intense analytics-informed environments. Tudor focuses on the Transportation/Logistics and Hospitality industries. Prior to assuming an advisory role, Tudor was a director of Revenue Optimization Innovation in the Distribution and Revenue Management Strategy Department at the InterContinental Hotels Group in Atlanta, GA. In that role, Tudor was responsible for the identification and exploitation of revenue/profit opportunities using research techniques from such study areas as operations research, economics and psychology. Tudor has published scientific papers in such journals as Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Transportation Research and Transportation. He is the co-author of the books Segmentation, Revenue Management and Pricing Analytics and Pricing Segmentation and Analytics. Tudor earned his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology with an emphasis on choice modeling, transportation systems, logistics and statistics. He holds an M.S. in Civil Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and an M.S. and B.S. in Transportation Systems from the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

Aaron Burciaga, CAP

CTO
Analytics2Go

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Aaron Burciaga is a Data Scientist, AI Engineer, author and Advisor with focus on the implementation of descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive forms of analysis to drive strategic decision making and millions of dollars in cost savings for his clients. Over 15 years of experience, Aaron has shaped commercial, federal, and Department of Defense strategies in automation, data science, machine learning, artificial intelligence, blockchain, quantum computing, and other emerging concepts and technologies. He leads innovation teams, thought leadership, and training at the crossroads of his technical interests: artificial intelligence, data science, global logistics, and information management.

Aaron’s roles have included CTO at Analytics2Go, Vice President Data Science and AI at Booz Allen, Global Analytics Platform Lead at Accenture, and Senior Research Scientist at Elder Research. Before turning his attention to commercial and public sectors, Aaron was a Marine Corps officer and Iraq war veteran and was the head operations research analyst and director of an operations analysis activity at the Pentagon, supporting the Marine Corps Headquarters. He is currently a Marine Reservist, where he supports the Chief Information Officer at Headquarters Marine Corps-Pentagon as Lead Data Technologist.

Aaron graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 2003 and earned his M.S. in Operations Research from the Naval Postgraduate School in 2010. He is also a Certified Analytics Professional (CAP).

Dayana Cope

Senior Manager, Experience Insights & Analytics
Walt Disney World Parks & Resorts

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DAYANA COPE leads the Advanced Analytics group at Walt Disney World. Her team focuses on providing analytical insight to solve operational challenges at the Disney Theme Parks and Resorts. Throughout her career, Dayana has spearheaded the inception and advancement of analytics efforts within global corporations in various industries. She obtained a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Central Florida with a focus in the area of Supply Chain Management and Simulation Modeling and Analysis. She currently serves as the INFORMS Roundtable representative for Disney.

Dragan Djurdjanovic

Associate Professor, Cockrell School of Mechanical Engineering
The University of Texas at Austin

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Dr. Dragan Djurdjanovic earned his Ph.D. in Mech. Eng. and MS in Elec. Eng. (systems) from the University of Michigan in 2002. He joined the faculty of The University of Texas at Austin in September 2007. He received the 2006 Branimir F. von Turkovich Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers. Dr. Djurdjanovic’s research seeks to make manufacturing systems, rotating machinery, and automobiles more independent and durable by using multiple sensor reading to help isolate abnormal behavior and autonomously compensate for it. His findings in dimensional quality modeling and diagnosis in multistage manufacturing systems have been employed by Ford Motor Co. and General Motors, while his work in the self-healing approach to diagnosis in automotive engine systems is being used by ETAS Inc. and Bosch.

Ray Ernenwein

Director of e-Commerce Supply Chain
Walmart, Inc.

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Ray Ernenwein is the director of e-commerce supply chain at Walmart Inc. In his current role, Ray is directing the use of advanced data science and modeling to deliver asset efficiency, network optimization and strategic operational improvements in Walmart’s omni-channel value chain. Ray has been a supply chain management professional in the high tech industry for twenty years. His industry experience includes semiconductors, consumer electronics and IT hardware. He has held roles in strategic planning, logistics, business operations and program management. Prior to his career in supply chain management, Ray earned an undergraduate degree in mechanical & aerospace engineering and a graduate business degree, both from Cornell University. Additionally, he’s earned a micomaster’s credential in supply chain management (MM SCM) from MIT. Ray has served as a U.S. Air Force Officer in Japan and has been a member, Vice President and committee chair on the Board of Directors of the APICS-Supply Chain Council—a global non-profit dedicated to promoting supply chain education, research and talent development.

Arnie Greenland, CAP

Business Analytics Faculty Member
Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland

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Dr. Arnie Greenland is currently a faculty member at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland where he teaches courses in Business Analytics. He retired in 2014 from the IBM Corporation, where he was an IBM Distinguished Engineer and Technical Executive within the Global Business Services, Public Sector Practice. His career spanned more than 40 years in which he delivered advanced business analytics services for both public- and private-sector clients. His last position at IBM was as manager of Advanced Analytics and Optimization practice for the Public Sector. In the last years at IBM, his client work focused on applying data and text mining methods to fight fraud and other improper payments in the Federal space. In his more than 35 year consulting career, Arnie worked in a wide variety of analytical areas including operations research, statistics, data and text mining, algorithm development, survey research, and econometric modeling. He worked in a very broad collection of application areas including revenue and social services administration, healthcare, postal operations, transportation, defense, intelligence and homeland security. Arnie continues to be very active in member and volunteer within INFORMS. Arnie was among the first 20 individuals to receive the Certified Analytics Professional (CAP) certification from INFORMS, and he continues to work on the CAP committees. He also holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics.

Juergen Klenk

Principal
Deloitte Consulting LLP

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Dr. Juergen Klenk is a principal with Deloitte Consulting LLP’s Monitor Strategy practice. He focuses on advancing Data Science in life sciences and health care through the unique lens of his combined formal scientific training and entrepreneurial experience. Dr. Klenk’s education and training in applied mathematics affords him a comprehensive understanding of Analytics and Data Science. His roles as NLP lead at IBM Research and as CEO, CTO, and VP of Engineering at bioinformatics company Definiens provide him with practical experience in IT, software engineering, and semantic data integration. For the past 15+ years he has worked with some of the leading organizations in health, including government agencies (e.g., NIH, FDA, CDC, CMS, and VA), academic medical centers, pharmaceutical and biotech companies, health care providers, and nonprofit organizations. His work has been focused on IT, data integration, analysis, and innovation strategies in health data sciences, to advance topics including precision medicine, clinical trials optimization, regulatory science, and health outcomes research. Dr. Klenk has authored numerous publications in peer-reviewed journals, holds multiple patents, is a frequent speaker at international conferences, and he is a co-investigator of the NIH Data Commons Pilot project. He holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen (Germany), and a masters degree in Mathematics and Physics from Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen (Germany). He spent his academic career at Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen (Germany), the Australian National University in Canberra (Australia), and Yale University.

Jack Kloeber

CEO
MicroMGx

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Jack Kloeber is a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel with experience in R&D portfolio management, decision analysis, modeling and simulation, technology selection, and strategy development. Jack taught mathematics at West Point for three years, and graduate level decision analysis, systems simulation, and technology selection for six years at the Air Force Institute of Technology. His work has supported decisions for various superfund sites within the Department of Energy, and many technology organizations within the Departments of Army, Air Force, and Navy.

After retiring from the U.S. Army, Jack was the head of Portfolio Management for Bristol-Myers Squibb, and more recently, head of Portfolio Management for J&J Pharma Services where he coordinated the portfolio management efforts across multiple R&D and marketing operating companies.

Jack has been a Senior Partner and Principal at KROMITE for 12 years where they helped large and small companies make better decisions through good processes and excellence in analytics. He led the Kromite analytics support of Syngenta’s Edelman Award–winning effort in 2015. Jack recently became CEO of MicroMGx, a startup company focused on delivering a high throughput Natural Products discovery capability to Pharma and Agriculture R&D organizations.

He received his PhD from Georgia Institute of Technology and MSIE and BSIE from Lehigh University.

Jack is a Past-President and Fellow of the Society of Decision Professionals, a member of the Decisions Analysis Society, Past-Chair of the 2018 INFORMS Analytics Conference and a 25-year member of INFORMS.

James Lemieux

Staff Researcher
General Motors

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James Lemieux is a seasoned marketing analytics professional with over 13 years of hands-on experience applying advanced statistics and econometrics models for clients in hospitality, direct marketing, credit risk, logistics, and high technology.
James has technical modelling skills in pricing, revenue management, promotion, marketing mix, consumer choice, sales response, forecasting, segmentation, customer lifetime value; additional, technical skills in software development (SAS, R, SQL), text analytics, surveys, market research, and experimental design.

Bob Liebe, CAP

President
Innovative Decisions

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Bob Liebe is President of Innovative Decisions, Inc., an analytics consulting company driven to improve client organization results through innovative analytics. His military career included service as a Marine helicopter mission commander and flight instructor, deployed analytic support in Iraq, and operations analysis supporting Marine Corps systems acquisition. He currently leads efforts integrating portfolio and risk analysis to enhance Navy installation public safety programs, while exploring Design Thinking methods applied in analytics. He has an MS from Naval Postgraduate School and MBA from University of Virginia.

Angela Long

DC Chapter
American Marketing Association

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Freeman Marvin, CAP

Executive Principal Analyst
Innovative Decisions, Inc.

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Freeman Marvin has over 25 years of experience as a decision analyst, group facilitator, and process consultant in the Federal government sector. His expertise is in the integration and application of organization development, operations research, and electronic collaboration technologies. He has facilitated numerous decision conferences and electronic meetings, developed decision models using a variety of software, and taught courses on group decision support for traditional facilitators, managers, and analysts. Freeman is a Certified Professional Facilitator (CPF) with The International Association of Facilitators. Freeman has worked as an operations research analyst for Rockwell International and Decision Science Consortium, and was a senior member of the technical staff for Northrop-Grumman TASC, a systems engineering and professional services company. He holds a Master in Public Policy degree from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a Bachelor of Science degree from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Robert Migliara

Operations Research Analyst
The Kroger Company

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Brian Morgan

Captain, U.S. Navy
Naval Postgraduate School

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Captain Brian Morgan is an active duty Navy officer with over 29 years of service. He has over six years of experience in the practical application of operations research at the Service headquarter level while assigned to the Assessment Division (OPNAV N81) in the Pentagon. While assigned to the Assessment Division, he coordinated campaign analysis and model development across the Navy Staff and with the Office of the Secretary of Defense, other three Services, Joint Staff, and combatant commands. He is currently a military faculty member in the Operations Department at the Naval Postgraduate School and teaches courses on probability and statistics, joint campaign analysis, and systems analysis. Additionally, he was the recipient of the 2018 Naval Postgraduate School Excellence in Joint Service Faculty Award. CAPT Morgan’s research focuses on analytic techniques to assess warfighting challenges at the enterprise level. He holds a leadership position on the INFORMS MAS Council. CAPT Morgan is a Naval Flight Officer in the E-2C Hawkeye community and commanded VAW-117, based at NAS Point Mugu, CA, and assigned to the NIMITZ Strike Group, from November 2007 to February 2009. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Virginia and a Master of Science degree in Operations Research from the Naval Postgraduate School.

William P. Nanry, PhD

Consultant for Research & Decision Sciences
Dell EMC

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Dr. Bill Nanry joined the Dell team in 2014, serving as a consultant for research and decision sciences on the main Round Rock Texas campus. Dr. Nanry comes from Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control in Dallas, Texas, where he served as a member of the Group Technical Staff for operations research and analysis. He is a 1979 graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point. He served in the Army from 1979-2005 as a combat engineer and operations research analyst; retiring at the rank of Colonel. Dr. Nanry is a multi-disciplinary college professor, having taught classes in systems engineering, operations research, business analytics, applied mathematics, engineering management, and operations management for over 20 years. He holds both a Ph.D. in Operations Research and a master’s degree in Applied Mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin and a B.S. in Applied Sciences and Engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Al Navqvi

American Institute of Artificial Intelligence (AIAI)

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Paul Nicholas, PhD

Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory

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Dr. Paul J. Nicholas is an adjunct faculty member in the Systems Engineering and Operations Research (SEOR) Department at George Mason University. He teaches a graduate course on analytics and decision analysis as part of GMU’s Data Analytics Engineering (DAEN) program. Paul is an operations research scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU APL), and also serves in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve.
Paul’s research focuses on the use of advanced analytic techniques to examine problems in national security, in particular communications systems, cyberspace operations, and electronic warfare. He is interested in large-scale combinatorial optimization and simulation.
Paul received his B.S. from the U.S. Naval Academy, his M.S. from the Naval Postgraduate School, and his Ph.D. from George Mason University. On active duty, he deployed several times to Iraq and Afghanistan in support of combat operations as a communications officer and operations research analyst. He was a visiting fellow to the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, and an MIT Seminar XXI Fellow. He is a member of MORS, INFORMS, and IEEE, and is currently serving on the MORS Board of Directors.

Pelin Pekgün, PhD

Associate Professor
Moore School Of Business, University Of South Carolina

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Dr. Pelin Pekgün is an associate professor of management science in the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. Her research interests include applications of management science and operations research in pricing and revenue management, supply chain management, marketing/operations interface and humanitarian logistics. Prior to joining academia, she led the operations research team in North America at JDA Software’s Pricing and Revenue Management Group, where she worked in various projects in retail, hospitality, passenger travel and other leisure industries. Her work with the Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group on stay night price optimization was a finalist for the 2012 INFORMS Franz Edelman Award and the 2013 INFORMS Revenue Management and Pricing Section Practice Award. She currently serves as an Associate Editor for Decision Sciences and Interfaces journals, the chair of the INFORMS Membership and Member Services Committee, a member of the INFORMS Franz Edelman Award committee, and a Board member for the INFORMS Practice Section. Dr. Pekgün holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in industrial and systems engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, and B.S. and M.S. degrees in industrial engineering from Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey.

Harrison Schramm, CAP

Non-Resident Senior Fellow
Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments

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Harrison Schramm has been a leader in the Operations Research community for the past decade. Prior to joining CSBA, he had a successful career in the US Navy, where he served as a Helicopter Pilot, Military Assistant Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, and as a lead Operations Research Analyst in the Pentagon. His areas of emphasis were large-scale simulation models, statistics, optimization, and applied probability. His current research is at the intersection of data, mathematical models, and policy.
Mr. Schramm enjoys professional accreditation from the Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences (CAP, INFORMS), the American Statistical Association (PStat, ASA) and the Royal (UK) Statistical Society (CStat, RSS). His published work has appeared in INTERFACES, J. Applied Meteorology and Climatology, SIGNIFICANCE, J. Mathematical Biosciences, Proceedings of the US Naval Institute, OR/MS Today and Military Operations Research. He is a past Vice President of the Military Operations Research Society (MORS) and is active in several Committees of INFORMS. Notably, in 2018, he served as a Judge for the prestigious Franz Edelman Award.
He is a recipient of the Richard H. Barchi Prize, Steinmetz Prize, Meritorious Service Medal, Air Medal, and the Naval Helicopter Association’s Aircrew of the Year. He is the 2018 recipient of the Clayton Thomas award for distinguished service to the profession of Operations Research.

Les Servi

Group Leader, Decision Analytics
The MITRE Corporation

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Les Servi is a Group Leader for a Decision Analysis group at The MITRE Corporation. At MITRE he contributed to a diversity of areas including the analysis of social media and portfolio analysis. In addition he is a technical advisor to some government programs to help select, monitor, and/or make recommendations to redirect recipients of government funding. He is currently working on starting a new Social Media Analysis subdivision of INFORMS and is currently the Boston INFORMS chair. He is a former member of two Defense Science Board task forces, a former member of the Board of Directors of INFORMS for 6 years, a former chair of the Applied Probability subdivision and the Telecommunication subdivision and is a Fellow of INFORMS. He has been an editor of Operations Research, Management Science, and INFORMS Journal on Computing. He previously worked at Bell Laboratories and GTE (now Verizon) Laboratories pursuing telecommunication research, served as a visiting scientist at Harvard University and MIT, and worked at MIT Lincoln Lab in the areas of military communication and ISR. He has an extensive publication record with five papers having more than 20 citations and was awarded 10 patents as a result of his operations research analysis. He earned an Sc.B and Sc.M. in Applied Mathematics from Brown University and an M.S. and Ph. D. from Harvard University.

Gary Summers

President
Pipeline Physics LLC

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Gary Summers is president of Pipeline Physics LLC, a research and consulting boutique that helps pharmaceutical companies glean more value from drug development. His research focuses on resolving uncertainty and evaluating portfolio management from results and historical data. His designs for computer simulations that teach portfolio management received U.S. patents 6,236,955; 6,408,263 and 7,349,838. Dr. Summers earned an M.S. and Ph.D. in Management Science from Northwestern University, performed a post-doctoral fellowship at Oregon Graduate Institute (Oregon Health Science University) and was a visiting research professor at Portland State University.

Alexis Takvorian

VP Network Strategy & Solutions
Pitney Bowes

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Renee Thiesing

Vice President of Strategic Alliances
Simio LLC

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Renee is responsible for establishing and building strategic business and technology partnerships globally for Simio. She was previously a Sr. Application Engineer with Simio where she provided consulting services and training to Simio customers in the fields of healthcare, logistics, supply chain, manufacturing, food production and aerospace. Renee has previous experience as a manager and consultant for software companies in both the telecommunications and warehouse management industries. Renee has a BS and MS of Industrial Engineering from the University Of Michigan and Auburn University.

Andrew Vesper

Manager, Data Science Practice
Deloitte Consulting

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Andrew is a Manager in the Data Science practice with Deloitte Consulting. Andrew specializes in development and validation of valuation, risk, and regulatory models for financial institutions. Specific project experience includes applications in retail and wholesale credit risk (PD, LGD, and EAD models for CCAR), correlation trading portfolios (IRC and CRM for Basel), asset-backed securities (mortgage prepayments), and counterparty credit risk.

Prior to joining Deloitte, Andrew completed his PhD in the department of statistics at Harvard.

Lalit Wadhwa

Avnet, Inc.

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Glenn Wegryn

Executive Director
Center for Business Analytics, University of Cincinnati

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Glenn Wegryn is a proven leader of analytics organizations in supply chain, planning, sourcing, inventory, revenue, consumer and trade analytics.　 He has held organizational leadership, project management, technology development and analysis roles of increasing impact and responsibility at Procter & Gamble over a 28 year career.　 He currently serves as Executive Director of the Center for Business Analytics at UC and leads an independent Analytics consultancy, Analytic Impact LLC. He holds a BS in Quantitative Analysis from Indiana University Kelley School of Business and is a Certified Analytic Professional by INFORMS.

Erick Wikum

Analytics Consultant
Wikalytics, LLC

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Erick is an independent analytics consultant for Wikalytics, LLC. He earned a B.S. degree in Operations Research and Mathematics from the U.S. Air Force Academy and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Operations Research from the Georgia Institute of Technology. For over 25 years, he has helped his clients within various industries including freight transportation, logistics, heavy equipment manufacturing, oil and gas, retail and agribusiness to make better, data-driven decisions and to achieve improved resultant outcomes. Prior to founding Wikalytics, Dr. Wikum served as an internal and external analytics consultant for the U.S. Air Force, Norfolk Southern, Schneider, IBM and Tata Consultancy Services. Erick is very active within INFORMS and currently serves as president of the 2,500-member Analytics Society and as an Associate Editor of the INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics.

Selects Committee

CHAIR: Scott Nestler, CAP

Associate Teaching Professor, Department of IT, Analytics, and Operations
Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame

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Scott Nestler, PhD, CAP is an Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of IT, Analytics and Operations, within the Mendoza College of Business, at the University of Notre Dame. Previously, he served as an operations research analyst in the U.S. Army, to include teaching at the Naval Postgraduate School and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Nestler has a Ph.D. in management science from the University of Maryland – College Park. He is the currently the Vice-Chair for Programs of the INFORMS SpORts (Operations Research in Sports) Section and has served as the Chair and Vice-Chair of the Analytics Certification Board.

Fatma Gzara

University of Waterloo

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Fatma Gzara is Associate Professor and co-founder of WANOPT, the Waterloo Analytics and Optimization Lab. She holds a Professional Engineering designation in Ontario, Canada. Her primary research interests are in large scale optimization and its applications. Her current research activities focus on data analytics, supply chain management, optimization under uncertainty, and network design for hazardous material transportation, distribution and airline operations. Recently, she is leading several industry collaborations on data analytics funded by federal and provincial grants. Some of her industry collaborators include Bombardier Inc., Navtech Inc., and Dematic Ltd, MedAvail Technologies Inc.. She published work on large scale optimization, optimization under uncertainty, network design and analysis, supply chain management, hazmat transportation, and airline operations planning. Her work appeared in the Journal of Global Optimization, Omega: The International Journal of Management Science, Networks, Computers and Industrial Engineering, and IIE Transactions, among others.

Professor Gzara received a Ph.D. in Management from the Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University, and M.S. and B.S. degrees in Industrial Engineering from Bilkent University (Ankara, Turkey) in 1995 and 1997, respectively. She was assistant professor at York University from 2006 to 2009. Prior to that, she held a postdoctoral position at the University of Alberta, School of Business.

Ed Pohl

Professor, Department Head
Industrial Engineering Department
University of Arkansas

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Dr. Edward A. Pohl is Head of the Industrial Engineering Department, Professor and holder of the 21st Century Professorship of Engineering at the University of Arkansas. Dr. Pohl also serves as the Director of the Center for Innovation in Healthcare Logistics and former Co-Director of the emerging Institute for Advanced Data Analytics. Before coming to Arkansas, Dr. Pohl spent 21 years in the United States Air Force where he served in a variety of engineering, operations, analysis, and academic positions during his career. Dr. Pohl is a Fellow of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers, a Fellow of the Society of Reliability Engineers, a Diplomate in the Society for Health Systems and a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and a member of INFORMS, INCOSE, ASEM and ASQ. Dr. Pohl’s research interests are in risk, reliability, engineering optimization, supply chain risk analysis, healthcare logistics, decision making and quality. He has published more than 100 refereed articles and given more than 100 presentations at national and international conferences. Dr. Pohl is an Associate Editor for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Transaction on Reliability, the Journal of Risk and Reliability, and the Journal of Military Operations Research.

Sudip Bhattacharjee

Associate Professor, School of Business
University of Connecticut

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Sudip Bhattacharjee is an Associate Professor in the School of Business, University of Connecticut. He currently serves as the Chief, Center for Big Data Research and Applications, US Census Bureau. He is Visiting Faculty at EM Lyon School of Business, France, and Indian School of Business. He was a Visiting Professor at GE Global Research Center, USA. He has previously served as the Assistant Dept. Head of Operations and Information Management, and as the Executive Director of MBA Programs, both in the School of Business, University of Connecticut. His research interests include information systems economics, energy informatics, digital goods and markets, data analytics in IT and operations, and closed loop supply chains. His research has appeared in premier journals such as Management Science, INFORMS Journal on Computing, Journal of Business, Journal of Law and Economics, ACM Transactions, Journal of Management Information Systems, IEEE Transactions, and other leading peer-reviewed publications. He serves or has served as Associate Editor for Information Systems Research (for 5 years), guest AE for MIS Quarterly and Decision Sciences Journal, and in prestigious committees such as INFORMS Edelman Award, INFORMS Selects, and various conferences and workshops. He co-chaired CIST 2014 (Conference on Information Systems and Technology), Review Coordinator, WITS 2015 (Workshop on Information Technology and Systems). He has extensive research consulting experience with Fortune 100 firms on “Big Data” driven decision making in IT and operations. He also teaches a semester-long live data analytics graduate course in partnership with private and govt. organizations. His research has been highlighted in various media outlets such as Business Week, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Der Spiegel, Christian Science Monitor, slashdot.org, Business 2.0 Web Guide, and others.

Mary Helander

IBM Research

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Dr. Mary Helander is a master inventor and senior research scientist in Mathematical Sciences & Analytics at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center. She received a B.A. (CIS/math) from SUNY Potsdam, an M.S./IEOR from Syracuse University, and a Ph.D./IEOR from the University of Buffalo. Dr. Helander was a Research Fellow and faculty member at Linköping University, in Sweden. During 30+ years in research and applications, Dr. Helander has applied modeling, problem solving, algorithm and solution development to study HIV transmission dynamics; network design, hazardous material routing; geographically distributed team coordination; greenhouse gas emission minimization; tracking food ingredients; testing raw materials for contaminants; and other applications in transportation, manufacturing, and data science for social good. She has published in the Journal of Food Protection, Interfaces, Networks, Transportation Science, Computers and Operations Research, IBM Journal of Research and Development and IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering.

Nada Sanders

Northeastern University

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Dr. Nada Sanders is the Distinguished Professor of Supply Chain Management at the D’Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University. She is an internationally recognized thought leader and expert in forecasting and supply chain management. She is author of the books Big Data Driven Supply Chain Management (Pearson, 2014), Foundations of Sustainable Business (Wiley, 2014), as well as Supply Chain Management: A Global Perspective, 2nd edition (2017), and is co-author of the book Operations Management, in its 5th edition. She is highly published in leading scholarly journals, such as California Management Review, Journal of Operations Management, Journal of Business Logistics, and numerous others.

She is a Fellow of the Decision Sciences Institute, and has served on the Board of Directors of the International Institute of Forecasters (IIF), Decision Sciences Institute (DSI), and the Production Operations Management Society (POMS). She was co-founder and Associate Editor of Foresight: The International Journal of Applied Forecasting. Throughout her career Dr. Sanders has successfully held a range of leadership roles in both academic and professional organizations and has served on a number of executive boards. She has provided training and consulting to a range of Fortune 500 companies, and is a frequently called upon keynote speaker and expert witness.

Jim Williams, CAP

Principal Consultant, Xpress Optimization Team
FICO

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Jim Williams is a Principal Consultant with FICO’s Xpress Optimization team. He has 36 years of experience as an analytics consultant and supply chain manager. His role is to help organizations understand the potential of applying optimization and advanced analytic methods to help solve tough business problems in short order. This can take form as diagnosing opportunities to help solve their problems, demonstrating capabilities with their data, and framing up training and/or development efforts. Prior to FICO, Jim led the Advanced Analytics team at Land O’Lakes, solving supply chain challenges in planning, sourcing, manufacturing and distribution.
Jim has been a member of TIMS and INFORMS since 1983, and a Roundtable representative since 2006. He has served on the INFORMS Membership Committee, the Analytics Maturity Model Committee, the Meetings Committee, the Analytics Conference Advisory Committee, and is a past-president of the Analytics Society. He served as general chair for the 2013 Analytics Conference. He is currently serving on the Analytics Certification Board.
Jim received a MS degree in Forestry with Operations Research concentration, from the University of Minnesota. He also holds the Certified Analytics Professional credential.

Poster Committee

Matthew Lanham, CAP

Clinical Assistant Professor, Quantitative Methods Area
Purdue University

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Matthew Lanham is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Quantitative Methods Area in Purdue University’s Krannert School of Management. His primary focus is serving as Academic Director for the M.S. in Business Analytics & Information Management (BAIM) program, coordinating and teaching Krannert’s Data Mining, Predictive Analytics, Using R for Analytics, and Industry Practicum courses, as well as interfacing these activities with Purdue’s Business Information and Analytics Center (BIAC) serving as its Assistant Director of Student Engagements. Matthew also currently serves as the Secretary/Treasurer for the INFORMS Data Mining section.

Vahab Vahdatzad

Harvard Medical School

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Vahab is a research fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital Institute for Technology Assessment. He has received his M.S. and Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from Northeastern University. His main research interest is applying simulation and optimization methods in operations of health care outpatient centers. He also utilizes microsimulation model in designing cost-effectiveness analysis for thyroid cancer.

Alan Taber, CAP

Systems Engineer Senior Staff
Lockheed Martin

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Alan Taber is from Fort Worth where he is a member of the System Design and Requirements group at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control. He has over 15 years of experience variety of increasingly responsible roles, including time in software project management, combat system engineering, and renewable energy. He has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Stanford, a master’s in System Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology, and an MBA from Rutgers-Camden in International Business. He participated in the 2008 INFORMS Professional Colloquium, is co-chair of the CAP Study Guide Committee and study guide editor, and has served as co-chair of the Analytics Conference Poster Session since 2012 and as the INFORMS Professional Colloquium (IPC) chair since 2015.