Pooja Dewan
Chief Data & Analytics Officer, Otis Elevators, Farmington, CT
Vision Statement
I am honored to be nominated to the position of INFORMS VP of Membership. As an active member of INFORMS since 1998, I have enthusiastically served our community in a variety of roles.
My experience as a member of INFORMS as a student, industry practitioner and a member of several academic advisory boards, gives me a balanced range of experience that is representative of the diverse mixture of INFORMS members. I will work to ensure the efficient operations of the executive board. I will work to build on existing efforts and foster new initiatives in three specific areas. First, I believe academic programs are important. The students of today are the practitioners and academics of the future. I would like to create programs and avenues to foster dialogue between academic programs and practitioners to provide insights on what skills they need in their future hires. I would also continue to augment programs, such as ECPN, that provide students with a glimpse into the working life before they choose their career path.
Second, I will help INFORMS in their outreach efforts to not just attract graduate students, but also help garner interest from undergraduate students to create a healthy pipeline for STEM majors. A lot of high schools have robotics and computer science clubs. We need to aim for students to have an “Analytics Society” to expose them to careers in this field.
Third, I would initiate and promote any activities that attract new members and institutions to join INFORMS. In a world where “Data Science is the sexiest job in the 21st century” there are several conferences and fora that have opened up to engage practitioners in analytics that do not know about INFORMS. We need to explore ways of attracting these analytics professionals to consider INFORMS as a forum for meeting their counterparts.
I am honored to be nominated for VP of Membership of INFORMS. If elected, I look forward to serving.
Biographical Profile
Education
- Master’s & PhD Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, Penn State University (1999)
Professional Experience
- Otis Elevators: Chief Data & Analytics Officer (March 2019-Present)
- BNSF Railway:
- Chief Data Scientist (2016-March 2019),
- General Director Decision Support Systems (2008-2016),
- Director Locomotive Utilization (2009-2011),
- Manager Operations Research (2003-2008),
- OR Specialist (1998-2003)
INFORMS Service
I have served as a member of INFORMS (Operations Research Society of America) since 1993 and RAS (INFORMS Railway Applications Section) since 1999. As an active member of the Railway Applications Section, I have played several roles including RAS Chair (2003-2005), RAS Workshop Organizer (2005), RAS Newsletter Editor (2004-2013), and RAS Student Paper Chair (2004-2008). I am also an INFORMS Roundtable member (2013-2017).
I am the current chair of the Franz Edelman Award (2018-2020). I was chair of the Franz Edelman Gala Committee (2016-2017), and a member of the Judging Committee (since 2012), Gala Planning Committee (since 2011), Edelman Award semi-finalist (2009), and Finalist Selection Judge (2015).
I have been an active member of the Analytics Society since its first year and chaired the Innovative Applications in Analytics Award (2013-2015) and judged the award (2011-2014).
I have strived to create a dialogue between practitioners and academicians as the Analytics Program subcommittee chair (2017) as well as serving on the UT Arlington Advisory Board (2014-Present) and Industry subcommittee (2014-2017).
Professional Activities
- Associate Editor, INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics (formerly Interfaces) (2016 – Present)
- INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics (formerly Interfaces) Reviewer (2013-current)
- IBM Customer Advisory Board (2013-2015)
- SAS Customer Advisory Board (2013-2015)