Georgia Tech’s Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) announced that Joel Sokol has been promoted to professor, effective August 15, 2018.

“I offer my congratulations to Joel on this momentous career achievement,” said H. Milton and Carolyn J. Stewart School Chair and Professor Edwin Romeijn. “Joel has done outstanding work in the areas of sports analytics and applied operations research, and his promotion to professor is indicative of this.”

About Joel Sokol

In addition to his ISyE appointment, Sokol is director of Georgia Tech's interdisciplinary Master of Science in Analytics degree program, including the new Online Master of Science in Analytics.

Sokol has worked with teams or leagues in all three of the major American sports. Sokol's LRMC method for predictive modeling of the NCAA basketball tournament is an industry leader, and his non-sports research has won the EURO Management Science Strategic Innovation Prize and been a finalist for the Cozzarelli Prize. He served two terms as INFORMS vice president of education and is a past chair and founding officer of the INFORMS section on sports operations research.

He has also won recognition for his teaching and curriculum development from IISE and the National Academy of Engineering. Additionally, he is the recipient of Georgia Tech's highest awards for teaching, including: the Class of 1940 W. Howard Ector Outstanding Teacher Award (2014); the Class of 1934 Outstanding Use of Innovative Educational Technology Award (2010); the Class of 1940 W. Roane Beard Outstanding Teacher Award (2008); the CETL/BP Junior Faculty Teaching Excellence Award (2006); and the ANAK Award (2005).

Sokol's Ph.D. (1999) in operations research is from MIT; his bachelor's degrees (1994) in mathematics, computer science, and applied sciences in engineering are from Rutgers University.