The UC Berkeley Master of Analytics program will host the 2025 INFORMS Regional Analytics Conference at the Alumni House on Sept. 26, 2025.
With nearly 12,000 members worldwide, INFORMS is the leading international association for professionals in operations research, analytics, management science, economics, behavioral science, statistics, artificial intelligence, data science, and applied mathematics.
This year’s conference, Convergence 2025: AI & OR Synergy Summit, will bring together leaders in artificial intelligence, operations research, and analytics to examine the future of data-driven decision-making. Attendees will have the opportunity to engage with experts from research institutions, technology companies, and policy organizations.
The summit will serve as a forum to explore how AI and advanced optimization intersect to influence business, policy, and human capital. Sessions will highlight predictive analytics, scalable optimization, and autonomous decision systems, with attention to their impact on industries of national importance.
The program will open with welcome remarks from Professor Alper Atamturk, director of the Master of Analytics program. Professor Anima Anandkumar, the Bren Professor of Computing at Caltech and a TIME100 Impact Awardee, will deliver the conference keynote. A featured talk will be given by Dr. Phil Kaminsky, senior principal research scientist at Amazon and UC Berkeley professor emeritus. Kaminsky’s research focuses on the analysis and development of tools and techniques for the design, operation, and risk management of logistics systems and supply chains.
In addition to academic sessions, the conference will include a career speed networking event to help attendees expand their professional connections, along with a panel discussion on careers, business, and the future of work in the post-AI and operations research world.
The organizers of Convergence 2025: AI & OR Synergy Summit are:
Anita Bowers, Sr. Account Manager – US West, Gurobi Optimization
Vinod Cheriyan, Machine Learning Data Scientist, StitchFix
Shubhangi Deshpande, Sr. AI Optimization Engineer, Workday
Dhanashree Lele, AI Researcher, University of Illinois Chicago
Vivek Pandit, Founding Engineer, Chipstack
Tony Qin, Principal Scientist, Amazon
Quico Spaen, Sr. Manager, Applied Science, Amazon
Jiaxi Zhu, Head of Analytics, SMB Division, Google
With 12,500 members, INFORMS is the largest association of operations research (O.R.) and analytics professionals and students. INFORMS provides unique networking and learning opportunities for individual professionals, and organizations of all types and sizes, to better understand and use O.R. and analytics tools and methods to save lives, save money, and solve problems.
More information about how O.R. and Analytics are impacting the world around us can be found here.
Learn more and register for Convergence 2025: Convergence 2025: AI & OR Synergy Summit