Eleni started her career in academia, first as Assistant and then as Associate Professor of Decision Sciences at Miami University, Ohio (1992-1998), and later at the Institute For Operations Research (IFOR) of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ, 1999-2003). In 2003 Eleni joined IBM Research in Zurich to conduct research in Business Optimization and Analytics, and in 2008 she founded the Department of Mathematical and Computational Sciences, bringing together HPC and Data Analytics and Optimization to address complex business problems. In 2012 she moved to IBM’s Watson Research Center in New York where she was Director of Optimization Research and led the division’s activities in Optimization and Algorithms. From 2013 to 2016 Eleni was Director of IBM Research – Ireland, running one of IBM’s global research labs focusing on Smarter Cities, advancing science and technology for intelligent urban and environmental systems. She later became the Research Director of Cognitive IoT solutions working closely with the Watson IoT business unit. In 2018 Eleni joined Accenture Technology as Managing Director of AI in Europe, responsible for building new solutions and bringing innovation to Accenture’s clients.
Her research and technical interests are at the intersection of data analytics and optimization, looking at industrial applications with a special focus on data driven transformation leveraging new technologies. Eleni worked in risk analytics and supply chain management in a number of industries with key projects in banking, pharma, construction, retail and travel & transport. She won numerous academic and industrial awards and her work resulted in scientific journal publications, industrial articles and patents.
Eleni has a PhD in Quantitative Analysis and Industrial Engineering (U. of Cincinnati, USA), an MBA with focus in Finance (UCLA, USA) and a B.Sc. in Civil Engineering (U. of Birmingham, UK).
