Professor Shmuel Oren Named 2025 IFORS Fellow
The Department of Industrial Engineering & Operations Research congratulates Professor Shmuel Oren on being named a 2025 Fellow of the International Federation of Operational Research Societies (IFORS). One of the highest international honors in the field, the IFORS Fellows Award recognizes distinguished individuals for their contributions to international operational research and its global communities.
Professor Oren is a Professor of the Graduate School and former Department Chair of Berkeley IEOR. He is the co-founder and Berkeley site director of PSerc—a multi-university Power Systems Research Center sponsored by the National Science Foundation and Industry members. Oren is internationally recognized for his pioneering research in optimization and the mathematical modeling of economic systems, with a particular focus on electricity market design and regulatory policy.
For over four decades, Professor Oren’s work has shaped market mechanisms and pricing strategies in regulated industries around the world. His research on power system scheduling, transmission planning, auction design, congestion management, transmission rights, generation adequacy, and ancillary service markets has been widely adopted in electricity markets across the U.S. and internationally. His recent projects address renewable energy integration, demand response, environmental regulation, and power dispatch optimization under uncertainty—including DOE ARPA-E projects on optimal transmission line switching, Grid Optimization, and the integration of Virtual Power Plants (VPP) based on “Behind the Meter” Grid Edge Technologies, into whole sale electricity markets.
Oren has also served as an advisor to numerous public and private entities in the electricity sector, and regulatory agencies around the globe. He was a Senior Adviser to the Texas PUC and member of the Market Surveillance Committee of the CAL ISO. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, Life Fellow of the IEEE and Fellow if INFORM and IFORS. He was awarded the INFORMS Hotelling Medal for life time achievements in Energy Natural Resources and Environment and the IEEE Outstanding Power System Engineering Educator Award.
Learn more about Professor Oren