INFORMS Announces Board of Directors Election Results

BALTIMORE, Oct. 1, 2025 – INFORMS, the world’s largest association for professionals and students in operations research (O.R.), AI, analytics and data science, announces the results of the 2025 election for the Board of Directors. These new members will begin their tenure on the board beginning January 1, 2026.

2025 Electees to the INFORMS Board of Directors:

President-Elect

• Wedad Elmaghraby, Dean’s Chair of Operations Management of the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, is the President-Elect of INFORMS. Elmaghraby’s research interests are at the interface of operations management, economics and behavioral decision-making. Her collaborations with faculty across economics, marketing, information systems, statistics, public policy and engineering reflect a strong appreciation for industry applications and interdisciplinary work. Elmaghraby’s work spans healthcare, energy, procurement, online market design, pricing and sustainability.

Secretary

• Pelin Pekgün is the newly elected Secretary of INFORMS. Pekgün, the Thomas H. Davis Professor in Business and Professor of Analytics at Wake Forest University School of Business, has served INFORMS in various leadership roles and has authored journal articles for INFORMS publications including “Manufacturing & Service Operations Management” and “INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics.”

Chapters & Forums

• Les Servi is the newly elected Vice President of Chapters and Forums at INFORMS. Servi was most recently the Chief Scientist for Cyber Operations Research at The MITRE Corporation after serving in leadership roles at MIT Lincoln Laboratory and GTE/Verizon Laboratories. Servi has also provided extensive service to the U.S. Department of Defense. He is a joint recipient of this year’s Kimball Award.

International Activities

• Gina Galindo is the newly elected vice president of International Activities at INFORMS. Galindo is Associate Professor and Department Chair of Industrial Engineering at the Universidad del Norte, with research blending probabilistic modeling, optimization and data analytics to support decision-making in complex, real-world contexts.

Marketing, Communications & Outreach

• Tinglong Dai has been re-elected for a second term as the Vice President of Marketing, Communications & Outreach at INFORMS. Dai is the Bernard T. Ferrari Professor of Business at Johns Hopkins University. He has published 18 articles in INFORMS journals on topics spanning AI, supply chains, healthcare and marketing. Dai is frequently quoted in the media and featured on live television.

Membership and Professional Recognition

• Anahita Khojandi has been re-elected for a second term as the Vice President of Membership and Professional Recognition at INFORMS. She is the Heath Endowed Faculty Fellow in Business & Engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.  Her research interests include decision-making under uncertainty and partial information, machine learning and reinforcement learning.

Practice

• Pooja Dewan is the newly elected Vice President of Practice at INFORMS. Dewan, CDO of Rentokil-Terminix, has demonstrated leadership in pioneering O.R. and AI/ML applications in the railway and manufacturing industries, as well as dedicated service to the INFORMS community connecting practice, research and education. 

The newly elected and re-elected candidates will join returning board members, including:

• Mark Lewis, President
• Dave Hunt, Past-President
• Susan Martonosi, Treasurer
• Illya Hicks, Vice President, Education
• Warren Hearnes, Vice President, Technology Strategy
• Ariela Sofer, Vice President, Meetings
• Christopher Tang, Vice President, Publications
• Theresa Roeder, Vice President, Sections and Societies

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Contact:

Rebecca Seel

443-757-3578

[email protected]

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