Eleni Pratsini is Director of Optimization Research at the Business Analytics and Mathematical Sciences Department of the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. She holds a B.Sc. in Civil Engineering (U. Birmingham, U.K.), an M.B.A. (UCLA), and a Ph.D. in Quantitative Analysis (U. Cincinnati). Her research includes production, logistics, operational risk, applied statistics and environmental analysis. In 1999 Eleni joined the Institute for Operations Research at the ETH Zurich where she directed students in industrial and research projects and carried out consulting in the Cement, Airline and Pharmaceutical industries. She joined IBM Research - Zurich in 2003 and was the Department Head of Mathematical and Computational Sciences prior to moving to the US in 2012. She is a member of the IBM Academy of Technology and the Academy Leadership Team.