Pinar Keskinocak is the H. Milton and Carolyn J. Stewart School Chair and Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) at Georgia Tech. She is also co-founder and director of the Center for Health and Humanitarian Systems. Previously, she served as the College of Engineering ADVANCE Professor and as interim associate dean for faculty development and scholarship. Prior to joining Georgia Tech, she worked at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. She received her Ph.D. in Operations Research from Carnegie Mellon University, and her M.S. and B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Bilkent University.
Dr. Keskinocak’s research focuses on the applications of operations research and management science with societal impact, particularly health and humanitarian applications, supply chain management, and logistics/transportation. Her recent work has addressed infectious disease modeling (including Covid-19, malaria, Guinea worm, pandemic flu), evaluating intervention strategies, and resource allocation; catch-up scheduling for vaccinations; hospital operations management; disaster preparedness and response (e.g., prepositioning inventory); debris management; centralized and decentralized price and lead time decisions. She has worked on projects with companies, governmental and non-governmental organizations, and healthcare providers, including American Red Cross, CARE, Carter Center, CDC, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Emory University, and Intel Corporation.
She is an INFORMS Fellow and served as the president of INFORMS in 2020. Previously she served on the INFORMS board twice, as Secretary and as Vice President of Membership and Professional Recognition. She was the co-founder and president of INFORMS Section on Public Sector OR, president of the INFORMS Health Applications Society, president of INFORMS Women in OR/MS Forum, and co-founder and president of INFORMS Junior Faculty Interaction Group Forum. She served in several editorial roles in academic journals, including department editor for Operations Research, department editor of IISE Transactions on Healthcare Systems Engineering, department editor of Service Science, senior editor of Production and Operations Management, and associate editor for Manufacturing & Service Operations Management.
Her other notable service activities include National Academies of Engineering Science and Medicine committee membership, including Building Adaptable and Resilient Supply Chains after Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria | National Academies and Addressing Issues of Vaccine Distribution and Supply Chains to Advance Pandemic and Seasonal Influenza Preparedness and Response | National Academies.