ANANT BALAKRISHNAN is the Associate Dean for Research, and holds the Kenneth M. and Susan T. Jastrow, II Chair in Business at the McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin. He has previously held faculty positions in the business schools at M.I.T., Penn State, and Purdue University. Professor Balakrishnan received his Ph.D. in management science from the Sloan School of Management at M.I.T.

Professor Balakrishnan’s primary teaching and research interests are in operations and supply chain management, and optimization. His research, often collaborative and motivated by interactions with industry, focuses on developing effective optimization models to address strategic, tactical, and operational planning problems in manufacturing, logistics, and telecommunications. He has worked on sponsored research projects with many manufacturing and service firms, and has also supervised numerous student internships at companies. Professor Balakrishnan’s publications have appeared in leading journals such as Management Science, Operations Research, Networks, Transportation Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Mathematical Programming, and Information Systems Research.

Professor Balakrishnan served as the Vice-President of Subdivisions for INFORMS from 1998 to 2002. He is an Area Editor for Operations Research, and serves on the editorial boards of other management science and operations management journals. His professional awards include a best paper prize at the INFORMS national meeting and the Salgo Noren Master's Program Outstanding Teaching Award at Purdue University.