Alex Kaizer is an Assistant Professor of Biostatistics and Informatics at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in the Colorado School of Public Health and a faculty member in the Center for Innovative Design and Analysis where he is involved in translational research across the medical campus. His research focuses on Bayesian methods for information sharing across multiple sources of data, the design of adaptive...

Ashley Corso is a lead consultant at Decision Frameworks. She joined the team in 2019. She instructs courses on decision quality and develops new course materials. Utilizing Decision Frameworks’ scenario thinking approach to decision framing, Ashley is adept at supporting projects ranging from technology commercialization, pharmaceutical drug development, subsidiary divestiture, exploration, appraisal, and development...

Anna is currently holding a position of Head of Exploration Shared Services in OMV, in Vienna, the role she assumed in 2024.

Anna has an MSc. in Geophysics from the University of Science and Technology (AGH) in Krakow. Before pursuing a managerial career path in 2021, she held various technical roles in data processing, production, and exploration with industry player.

Anna earned an MBA from ESSEC and Mannheim...

David Baltaxe is the President and Chief Intelligence Officer of Unanimous AI. In addition to leading the business operations of the company, he oversees the application of the company’s groundbreaking Swarm AI® technologies to amplify the intelligence of groups for better decision-making, forecasting, evaluations, and insights. Swarm AI has been used in medical and market research, by leading financial institutions and...

Dr. Paul Papayoanou has been with Decision Frameworks since 2021 as a Senior Advisor and Game Theory Specialist. As a leading expert in applied game theory, decision analysis and decision quality with over 20 years of experience as a decision practitioner, Dr. Papayoanou works with framing and analysis using multiple proven and proprietary methods.

Dr. Papayoanou is a former Professor at the University of California,...

​Steve Galatis leads the Decision Frameworks Life Sciences practice as a Senior Advisor and has extensive experience in applying decision analysis and decision quality, game theory, and portfolio analytics and strategy. He has over 20 years of experience as a consultant in pharmaceuticals, crop protection, energy, and other industries. For 12 years he applied his skills as part of a leading biopharmaceutical company, where he...

Gary Summers is a Director of Oncology Portfolio Management at GSK, where he applies decision analysis to drug development. Complimenting this work, he studies how uncertainty impacts decision-making. Gary earned an M.S. and Ph.D. in Management Science from Northwestern University and was a visiting research professor at Portland State University.

John Mark Agosta works as an applied researcher, with 30 years of experience with numerous startups and labs in the Bay Area. Most recently he was at Microsoft where he worked as a data scientist with cloud customers building models for applications in supply chain, pricing, root cause analysis, compute cluster autoscaling, network anomaly detection, and electronic health record simulation.

A varied career before...

Katrina Alger is a decision analyst and social scientist located in Madison, Wisconsin, with a background in both qualitative and quantitative research. Her work with the USGS Water Mission Area focuses on improving the delivery of water availability model outputs by researching the human drivers of water quality, quantity, and use, and by understanding the intersections of data and decision-making for management partners....

Julien Martin is a Supervisory Biologist at the US Geological Survey, Eastern Ecological Science Center. He manages the Quantitative Methods and Decision Science capability (QMDS) team. The QMDS team includes more than 20 scientists including world leaders in statistical modeling, ecological forecasting and decision science. He obtained a Ph.D. in the department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation at the University of...

Dr. Henry Conter is solving the impossible problems in healthcare by re-imagining how all types of people can take control of their care and maximize their experience and outcomes. He is the portfolio manager of early development oncology in the pharmaceuticals Research and Early Discovery division at Hoffman La-Roche, focused on clinical trials design that reflects the needs of patients, clinicians, and their...

Douglas A. Samuelson is President and Chief Scientist of his own consulting company, InfoLogix, Inc., in Annandale, Virginia. He is also a Senior Research Fellow of The Dupuy Institute, the world leader in military historical analysis since 1962. He has been a Federal policy analyst, consultant, successful high-tech entrepreneur and executive, patented inventor, political campaign professional, and an adjunct and research...

Dr. Brandt is a wildlife biologist/regional scientist with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Southeastern USA. She serves as a science instigator with the goal of linking science and management for improving conservation decision making.

Walter Kosi is an Explorationist working for the Austrian Energy Company OMV. He earned his Diploma in Applied Geosciences from the University of Leoben, Austria. In his 20-year career, Walter has started to work in technical disciplines like data acquisition, data processing, and data interpretation in a wide variety of different countries and basins. He then took over Exploration Manager and Department Manager roles. In...

Jost Püttmann is a Geologist by background working for the Austrian Energy company OMV. During his career he covered several different technical subsurface roles on four continents before turning to Reservoir- and then Portfolio Management. It was during his time as portfolio manager, when he got to know that even smart portfolio analysis can lead to bad decisions. Since 2019, he has worked as advisor for Decision Quality in...

Angela works as a Decision Analyst and Biometrician for the US Fish & Wildlife Service where she’s responsible for providing decision analytic and statistical support to staff on 70 National Wildlife Refuges across 9 states in the Midwest Region of the United States. Prior to working on land management problems, she worked at the intersection of science and policy in the Endangered Species Program.

During her...

Jennie Leota is an Assistant Director for the Science, Technology Assessments, and Analytics Team at the Government Accountability Office (GAO). She is a responsible for performing cost, schedule, analysis of alternatives, and Earned Value Management analyses to support audit findings on a wide range of government programs. Certified by the International Cost Estimating and Analysis Association, she has almost 20 years’...

Dr. Sara Eggers directs the Decision Support and Analysis Staff within FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. This staff leverages decision science principles and tools to help structure, inform, and effectively communicate the Center’s drug regulatory decision-making. Through this work, Dr. Eggers has contributed decision science expertise to initiatives regarding drug benefit-risk assessment, patient-focused drug...

After a degree in Applied Math and an MBA, Tyler studied Decision Science at Stanford. He then spent a decade applying it at Fortune 500 companies, including working with 18 of the top 20 pharma companies. In 2018 he pulled a Robin Hood with Decision Science and founded the Decision Skills Institute to share it to people everywhere. The Institute targets broad-reaching efforts like training large teams of employees,...

Dr. Comfort is a Principle Scientific Enablement Director for Roche in the Science Enablement and Process group, leading innovation work supporting Pharmacovigilance. He is a Board Certified Neurologist with 20+ years combined biopharma industry/regulatory experience including roles as former Medical Reviewer at the US FDA, Clinical Research and Safety at J&J, Anesiva, KCI, Cyberonics, Adaptix, and Genentech. Dr....

Kuno Huisman is Head of Strategic Capacity Preparation Decision Quality and Strategic Programs. Next to that he is part-time full professor of decision making under uncertainty at Tilburg University where he teaches courses on professional skills and investment under uncertainty. Kuno believes that decision quality can assist individuals and institutions to make better decisions that will lead more often to desired outcomes....

Steve Begg is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Adelaide. His focus is on tools and processes for decision-making under uncertainty; bias identification, impact quantification and mitigation; project/asset and portfolio economic evaluations. Prior to academia he spent 19 years in industry in a variety of technical and management roles related to uncertainty assessment/modeling, economic evaluation and...

Amy specializes in teaching young people and the adults who care about them how to make good decisions. With over two decades of experience in Decision Education and a Stanford certification, she teaches courses through corporate partnerships, community organizations and schools, and Clarity4Action-hosted classes. Amy is the co-founder and Executive Director of Clarity4Action.org and an SDP Board Member.

Stefanie is a local DEF representative in Eugene, Oregon with experience in education, research, and teaching. She studied legal psychology (the intersection of cognitive, experimental, and applied psychology) at Florida International University. Some findings from her works show how improving conditions for children are best if supported in the family, school, and community setting. Her interest in decision education for...

A full-spectrum data professional, Dr. Neil Hamlett curates decisional evidence essential to organizations' most-important strategic and operational challenges. He currently helps the U.S. government's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure assess and manage risk related to the most-important federal-civilian information systems. Recently, he helped the U.S. Food and Drug Administration explore Natural-Language Processing...

Michael Kane is an Assistant Professor of Biostatistics at Yale University and the Director of the Biostatistic's Department's Data Science Pathway. He received his PhD and MA in Statistics at Yale University and his MS in Electrical Engineering and BS in Computer Engineering at Rochester Institute of Technology. He is a Co-Founder and Scientific Advisor at Telperian Inc., which provides machine learning tools, designs,...

Dr. Leah Sharpe is a decision scientist with the United States Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Research and Development. Her work at the EPA focuses on incorporating ecosystem service concepts into a variety of decision-making processes and developing tools and approaches to support doing so. Her recent work includes the development of decision tools, such as the Final Ecosystem Goods and Services Scoping Tool...

Ashley Goode is an assistant research scientist at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute where she develops manatee population models. She previously completed a post-doc at the University of Florida, department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation and the USGS Co-op Unit, where this research was conducted. Her research interests include conservation of endangered species, population...

Charles Persinger is an Executive Director in R&D Strategy at Eli Lilly and leads their Decision Sciences group. He joined Lilly after receiving his MBA from Duke University. Charles has over 20 years of experience helping enable organization decision quality at Lilly, with a focus on drug development and portfolio management decisions within Research and Development. He and the Decision Science team at Lilly work...

Leslie Lippard is currently serving as the Senior Director of Strategy and Portfolio at Alnylam, bringing a wealth of experience and expertise to the pharmaceutical industry. With a background in physics, Leslie earned a BS degree from Caltech and further honed strategic and managerial skills through an MBA from the University of Oregon, proudly representing the Ducks. Prior to joining Alnylam, Leslie held pivotal roles in...

Terrence Karner is on a mission to help everyone improve the way they make decisions. He is Director of Portfolio & Decision Analysis at Astellas Pharma where his group continually seeks to lead with best practices in Decision Quality and portfolio analysis. He has over 30 years of industry experience in pharma, big four management consulting, and wireless telecom where he has focused on deploying the best tools of...

John Driessnack is the President of the College of Performance Management. He holds faculty positions at University of Maryland, Project Management Center of Excellence and American University. John owns Olde Stone Consulting LLC, a niche sole proprietorship consulting firm. John has worked on ANSI standard development teams and is currently on PMI’s Standards Insight Committee. A retired USAF Lt Colonel, John’s military...

Sheldon Bernard is the founder of A440 Management LLC, a firm specializing in handling special situations and complex decisions. With over a decade and a half of experience assisting Fortune 100 boards and executive teams, he is a strong advocate for the utilization of Bayesian methods in strategic problem-solving. Sheldon has managed large projects in special situations, R&D, and corporate strategy, among others. He...

Patrick Leach is a Professor of Practice at the Colorado School of Mines and an independent strategy consultant. He is the author of Why Can't You Just Give Me the Number? - An executive's guide to using probabilistic thinking to manage risk and to make better decisions, now in its Second Edition, and is a Past President of the Society of Decision Professionals. He has written numerous pieces about the need to move toward...

Bill is an award winning strategy and decision-consultant with companies in North America and a global clientele. He has over 36 years of diverse strategy, decision and uncertainty management experience in several industries. While he is now a Vancouver-based independent consultant, you may remember him from his 25-year stint in Texas or his many appearances at DAAG starting back in 1995. He has taught decision and...

Fadi Micaelian is a seasoned enterprise software executive. Over the past three decades he has served in a number of senior positions at industry leaders like Oracle, BroadVision, Intellectual Ventures, and DataBeam (now IBM). He is also a serial entrepreneur, currently serving as a CEO at Sparkdit, the 3rd start-up he founded. Fadi is a distinguished scholar. He lectures at MIT, ASU and USF. As an inventor, his work has been...

Patrick Elder is the Director of the Data and AI Center of Excellence at ECS, supporting both DoD and Federal Civilian programs. He has over 19 years of experience in federal consulting focusing on data management, analytics, and solution architecture. Patrick also hosts and produces the ECS StoryPoints podcast, showcasing interesting stories and lessons learned to help build community in our increasingly geographically...

Niki Arya is an Associate Director of Biostatistics at AstraZeneca in the Respiratory & Immunology division. She is based at the Durham, NC office. She has been a statistician in the pharmaceutical industry for 20 years. She has a prior statistical experience in the Cardiovascular/Metabolic, Infectious Diseases, and Oncology therapeutic areas. She has a masters degree in Biostatistics from UNC-Chapel Hill.

Leila Lackey is the Program Lead for Decision Support at FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, Decision Support and Analysis Staff (DSAS). This group provides benefit-risk and decision analysis expertise for regulatory and policy decisions at the Center and led development of the Draft Guidance for Industry on Benefit-Risk Assessment for Human Drugs and Biologics. She has a Master of Health Science from Johns Hopkins...

Dr. Hong Yang is a senior advisor on Benefit-Risk in the Office of Biostatistics and Pharmacovigilance, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, US Food and Drug Administration. She was a member of FDA Benefit-Risk Guidance Working Group and FDA Benefit-Risk Framework Implementation team. She led many benefit-risk assessments to inform regulatory decision in CBER. She currently actively participates and contributes to...

Heather began working in the energy industry in 2010 while pursuing her undergraduate studies and starting working as a staff geologist for Aera Energy LLC in 2013 after completing her Masters of Science in geology from California State University, Long Beach. Her journey in decision analysis began in 2019 when she started taking executive education courses from UT Austin, earning the Strategic Decision and Risk Management...

George Nsoribe is an IT Planning, Performance management and Partner engagement professional with over two decades of experience in the energy industry, half of which was spent in the field, planning, deploying and managing telecommunication circuits across locations of diverse terrains while over a decade was spent deploying decision assurance activities to support major capital projects as well as working on budgeting,...

Sri Vaidyanathan brings over twenty years of international expertise to the energy industry, specializing in technology, strategy, and supply chain management. As the Global Architect and Process Quality Leader for the Lubricants supply chain at Shell, Sri is passionate about integrating Decision Analysis and Quality into supply chain operations. An active member of the Houston Society of Decision Professionals (SDP) chapter,...

Brendon is a DQ practitioner driving the energy transition at RWE, a global renewable energy developer, here in the US with a focus on Offshore Wind. Prior to joining RWE, he worked for a decade at ExxonMobil, developing, applying, and building organizational capabilities in DQ. Applications ranged from exploration and appraisal strategy in Guyana, country level strategy across the globe and business line strategies for low...

Jennifer Graham is a supervisory research hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey and leads the Integrated Science Branch in the New York Water Science Center. For over two decades Jennifer has conducted research on the environmental factors influencing the occurrence of cyanotoxins in the United States. She has conducted both regional and single system studies at a variety of spatial and temporal scales. Jennifer also...

Dr. Hal Cardwell has focused on collaborative multi-stakeholder planning and decision making throughout his career. Since 2008 he has led USACE’s Collaboration and Public Participation Center of Expertise (www.iwr.usace.army.mil/cpc/) in providing technical assistance to dozens of USACE projects and programs, and training hundreds of USACE staff on public participation, risk communication, and conflict resolution. Before...

Dr. Michelle Hilleary serves as a Supervisory Environmental Planner at the Institute for Water Resources, Water Resources Center based in Alexandria, VA, where she works on planning, collaboration, risk communication, and decision support tool development. She also serves as a Professor of Practice for Virginia Tech's Center for Leadership in Global Sustainability in the Online and Executive Master of Natural Resources in...

Jonathan has diverse experiences working with a variety of state and federal agencies on wildlife and fisheries management decisions that integrate decision support and ecological modeling. Recent examples include facilitating a management strategy evaluation addressing management of the summer flounder recreational fishery which included compiling survey input from over 800 respondents and facilitating stakeholders through the process for...

Dr. Kristen Harmon graduated from the University of Hawaii at Mānoa in 2022 with a PhD in Natural Resources and Environmental Management and a specialization in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology. Her PhD research focused on developing spatial and statistical models to assess environmental impacts on Hawaiian waterbird reproductive success and the role of Hawaiian Indigenous resource management in recovering...

Harrison Miller is a Senior Associate Scientist in Alnylam Pharmaceuticals’ research department. In the over two years he has spent at the company; he has been responsible for developing two of the major models used by the design pipeline in determining which drugs are tested in vitro. In addition to his machine learning responsibilities, Harrison has designed chemical informatics applications for modeling Alnylam’s drugs and...

Eric Johnson supports drug development decision making at GSK, where he is helping the new DA practice to grow. Previously he had done DA work at BMS, and for consultancies. He is co-author of the Handbook of Decision Analysis, and a Fellow of SDP.

Lan Ding is a portfolio management and analytics leader driving data-powered decision optimization for GSK's R&D pipeline investments. With over 10 years experience and EMBA, Lan has spearheaded analytics platforms leveraging cutting-edge frameworks and industry best practices to optimize high-stakes portfolios. Recognised for bridging the gap between data insights and actions, Lan’s pioneering frameworks have delivered lasting impact,...

Ellen Vernotzy is general manager of Opportunity Shaping for Capital Projects in Chevron’s Technology Company, based in Houston, Texas, a position she assumed in May 2020.

Vernotzy joined Chevron legacy company Unocal in 1998 as a geophysicist. After that, she held roles of increasing responsibility including Subsurface Manager for Deepwater Exploration and Projects, Planning Manager for Chevron North America...

Mike Benefiel is the General Manager of Decision Analysis for Chevron.

Mike is a Geophysical Engineer with a BSc. in Geophysical Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines. Mike has extensive experience in the energy industry, he has held positions in data acquisition, research, data processing, data interpretation, exploration, field development, consulting, technical management and...

Christa has over thirty years of experience in the oil and gas industry – first with Royal Dutch Shell and then with Chevron. Her career has given her the opportunity to explore most aspects of the crude to customer value chain, largely thanks to the last twenty years in the decision analysis space. She has worked on large capital projects running into the billions of dollars, regional strategic studies, business improvement...

Alison Zabik is the founder and head of Planning and Decision Technology at ExxonMobil, a multdisciplinary team combining decision science, corporate strategy & planning, and digital transformation. She founded the group in 2020 to scale the use of decision quality and analysis within ExxonMobil's project investment decisions. Ms. Zabik is a registered Professional Engineer and has degrees in civil engineering and music...

Dave is a strategic leader in the inextricably linked fields of decision-making, strategy, innovation, and collaboration. Formerly a Vice President of Decision Quality, he currently serves in a Strategic Analysis role with Open Options Corporation, the pioneering firm at the forefront of applying Game Theory to strategic decision-making. He is also a faculty member at Wilfrid Laurier University where he teaches Strategy...

Tony Kenck worked in the oil industry for 40 years. He started as a geophysicist, but eventually migrated to the dark side.

Since the late 90s, he tried to change the culture at Texaco and Chevron from an extremely de-centralized approach to a more centralized perspective. He was partially successful and, along the way, helped develop many of the portfolio tools, practitioners, and ways of thinking still in place. He...

Luis Mendoza is a senior consultant at Decision Frameworks. He joined the team in 2013. Luis enjoys the gamut of Decision Quality enablement with DF, from training to framing and evaluation to presentation. He specializes in probabilistic model development and strategy evaluation. Since 2013, Luis has worked a wide variety of engagements with oil and gas companies, manufacturers, and technical government projects. He holds a...

Beaumont Vance has been operationalizing Artificial Intelligence, Data Science and Analytics for Fortune 500 companies, startups and VC funds for over 30 years. His focus has been on practical deployments that drive competitive advantage through enhanced revenue and operational efficiency. While not a Decision Science professional, his work has borrowed heavily from this field and he really should start giving Carl credit...

Warren Hatch is CEO of Good Judgment Inc, a world leader in applying innovative probabilistic solutions to real-world decisions to forecast the future. He has assisted governments and private companies around the world to improve their foresight and quantify uncertainty. Warren's prior career was on Wall Street where he started at Morgan Stanley before co-founding a boutique investment firm. He earned his PhD from Oxford...

David Matheson cofounded SmartOrg, a Silicon Valley company that connects Innovation and Finance. SmartOrg's portfolio evaluation platform and consulting services help companies align on how to drive upside as well as on where and how much to invest. With decades of experience, David has helped senior management of firms around the world improve their results via portfolio management, product development, innovation, R &...

Max Henrion is Founder and CEO of Lumina Decision Systems. He has experience as professor, decision analyst, software designer, and entrepreneur. He originated Analytica, Lumina’s visual software platform for decision analytics. He was formerly a Professor at Carnegie Mellon and Consulting Professor at Stanford. He has published 3 books and over 70 articles in decision and risk analysis, energy and environment, and artificial...

Tom Keelin is a founder and Managing Partner of Keelin Reeds Partners, a firm that provides strategy, decision analysis, and education services to emerging businesses and venture-funded startups. Previously, over two decades with the Strategic Decisions Group (SDG), Tom co-developed the definition of "decision quality", led dozens of strategy engagements for leading companies, founded SDG's life sciences practice, and...

Dr. Spetzler, Chairman of Strategic Decisions Group, has been an innovator and leader in the application of Decision Science for decades. He is a recipient of the Ramsey Medal of the DA Society, the Pioneer Award of SDP, and was inducted into the SRI Hall of Fame for his contributions to the world of financial services.

Ellen Coopersmith is the founder of Decision Frameworks, a Decision Quality enablement firm, specializing in training, consulting, and software, which she formed in 1999.

She specializes in Decision Quality consultation, facilitation, training, and implementation. Her passion for the decision sciences focuses on decision framing, uncertainty analysis and leadership coaching.

Prior to founding Decision Frameworks,...

Paul Gordon is a highly accomplished business leader with over fifteen years’ experience leading decision-making transformation. He has facilitated key decision points for major programmes and strategic planning initiatives across a wide range of sectors, including extensively with the Defense and Security sectors in Australia, NZ and the UK.

Paul is committed to collaborative, value-focused decision-making with clear,...

William “Schatten” Douglas leads the US Air Force contracting eBusiness covering contract business systems. Before his current position, he served on the senior staff with the Office of Secretary of Defense, Army, Navy, and Air Force before shifting to the private sector. He earned a master’s in information systems technology at George Washington University and Defense Acquisition Workforce senior certifications in Program...

Dr. Qingbin Cui serves as the Director of the Build America Center (BAC), an entity funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation. He also directs the Smart Construction Laboratory at the University of Maryland. In his role, he spearheads BAC, focusing on the development of data-driven tools to support the implementation of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL). His efforts extend to aiding numerous local communities in...