Welcome

Kazim Topuz, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Business Analytics and Operations Management at the Collins College of Business at The University of Tulsa. He holds a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering with a dissertation on Data Mining Applications in Healthcare from Wichita State University and master’s degrees in Information Systems Engineering from Lehigh University and Industrial and Systems Engineering from Rutgers University.

His work focuses on designing probabilistic graphical models, including Bayesian Belief Networks and Markov Networks, integrated with data mining techniques for data-driven decisions. His current research passion is explainable AI and its applications in healthcare, accident severity, student retention, and mental health.

Topuz’s work has been published in journals like the European Journal of Operational Research, Decision Support Systems (DSS), OMEGA, Annals of Operations Research (ANOR), Journal of Business Research, Information Systems Frontiers, and Journal of Management Information Systems. He is a member of INFORMS, Decision Science Institute, American Medical Informatics Association, and Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE). He served as a special issue editor for DSS on “Explainable AI for Enhanced Decision Making” and for ANOR on “Interpretable Machine Learning.” 007)

Apart from analytics and its applications in industries such as healthcare, transportation, and education, Kazim enjoys a wide range of other pursuits. Photography, pickleball, traveling, and gardening are among his further interests. He enjoys both his career and assisting his community through volunteerism and other service activities. He is actively involved in serving communities such as refugees, minorities, and the underprivileged.

Awards and Honors

• 2025 Mayo Teaching Excellence Award

• 2023 IISE Gold Award

• 2022 Mayo Research Excellence Award

• Chapman Professorship Award (2020-2022)

• Outstanding Doctoral-level Student Award at Wichita State University (2016)

• Industrial Engineering Honor Society Membership Award (Alpha Pi Mu)

• Fellowships from Rutgers University and the Turkish Ministry of National Education

• First place in a national case study competition in Turkey (2007)

• Ranked in the top 0.1% among 500,000 university graduates in the Academic Graduate Exam in Turkey (2