The Speakers

James V. Burke was born in New Jersey, USA, in 1955. He received the B.S. degree from Knox College, Galesburg, IL, USA, in 1977, and the Ph.D. degree in mathematics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1983. He was an Assistant Professor of mathematics with the University of Kentucky, Lexington, from 1983 to 1985. In 1985, he moved to the University of Washington, where he is currently a Professor of mathematics, holding adjunct positions in applied mathematics and statistics. He is the past Director of the Applied and Computational Mathematical Sciences Program and the past Assistant Director of the Resource Facility for Population Kinetics, University of Washington. His research interests include numerical, theoretical, and applied optimization and variational analysis with a current focus on applications in statistics, new approaches to Kalman smoothing, eigenvalue optimization, and stability theory as well as the theory and algorithms for continuous optimization. 

Gino Lim is a professor and R. Larry and Gerlene (Gerri) R. Snider Endowed Chair of the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Houston (UH). He is a fellow of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) and serves as an editorial board member for several scientific journals. He is currently a Board Member of the IISE Board of Trustees and the Senior Vice President of International Operations of IISE. He holds several other positions such as a member of the Council of Industrial Engineering and Department Heads (CIEADH) and a founding member of the IISE Fellows Council on International Ambassadors Committee. Previously, he served as a member of the Board of Directors of INFORMS, Co-Chair of INFORMS Subdivisions Council, Vice President of Chapters/Fora of INFORMS, Chair of INFORMS Chapters/Fora Committee, the program chair for the 2017 INFORMS annual conference, and the program chair of 2012 ISERC Conference. His research areas include mathematical optimization, computational algorithm design, and Operations Research applications in community resilience, homeland security, power systems, healthcare delivery, and transportation. 

Elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in February 2021 and appointed a Distinguished Professor in April 2023, Jong-Shi Pang joined the University of Southern California as the Epstein Family Chair and Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering in August 2013. Prior to this position, he was the Caterpillar Professor and Head of the Department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne for six years between 2007 and 2013. He held the position of the Margaret A. Darrin Distinguished Professor in Applied Mathematics in the Department of Mathematical Sciences and was a Professor of Decision Sciences and Engineering Systems at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute from 2003 to 2007. He was a Professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University from 1987 to 2003, an Associate Professor and then Professor in the School of Management from 1982 to 1987 at the University of Texas at Dallas, and an Assistant and then an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Industrial Administration at Carnegie-Mellon University from 1977 to 1982. During 1999 and 2001 (full time) and 2002 (part-time), he was a Program Director in the Division of Mathematical Sciences at the National Science Foundation. Professor Pang has served as the Department Academic Advisor of the Department of Mathematics at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He has given many distinguished lectures at universities worldwide and plenary lectures at international conferences. 

Daniel Ralph is Professor of Operations Research, and a founder and Academic Director of the Cambridge Centre for Risk Studies, in Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge. He is Fellow and Director of Studies for Management Studies in Churchill College, where he also serves on the board of the Moller Centre.  Danny received his PhD in 1990 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He joined the Mathematics and Statistics Department at The University of Melbourne in 1993 before coming to Cambridge University, in 2000, for a joint appointment in the Engineering Department and Judge Business School.  He is Editor-in-Chief of Mathematical Programming (Series B). His research interests include optimization methods, equilibrium models and, in particular, modelling investment risk in electricity generation capacity.  His business interests focus on risk in decision making including the power generation industry. 

Thomas Rutherford is an applied economist working on issues in trade, energy, and environmental economics. His methodological focus involves the use of mathematical programming methods to better understand economic policy choices. His current projects include work on the economics of climate change policy, including carbon tariffs, as well as the impacts of international trade agreements. 

Stephen Wright designs algorithms that can solve the major computational problems in data science, using mathematical tools to understand how these algorithms work. He mainly uses mathematical tools from optimization, a field that provides a set of these tools for formulating and solving problems in all areas of science, engineering, and statistics. Optimization is the basis of most algorithms used in data science. 

Jonathan Eckstein is a Distinguished Professor in the department of Management Science and Information Systems at Rutgers University. His principle research interests are in numerical optimization algorithms, both continuous and discrete, and especially their implementation on parallel computing platforms. Areas of particular focus include augmented Lagrangian/proximal methods, branch-and-bound algorithms, and stochastic programming. He has also worked on risk-averse optimization modeling and on applying O.R. techniques to managing information systems. He completed his Ph.D. in Operations Research at M.I.T. in 1989, and then taught at Harvard Business School for two years. He then spent four years in the Mathematical Sciences Research Group of Thinking Machines, Inc. before joining Rutgers. At Rutgers, he led an effort establishing a new undergraduate major in Business Analytics and Information Technology ("BAIT"). In 2014, he was elected a fellow of INFORMS (the Institute for Operations Research and Managment Science).