INFORMS Returns to Atlanta for 2025 Annual Meeting

After more than 20 years, Atlanta is excited to host the 2025 INFORMS Annual Meeting and welcome conference-goers back on October 26-29, 2025! The city is expecting to host more than 6,000 members of the INFORMS community, including academic scholars, students, and industry leaders and experts. The meeting is expected to serve as a catalyst for continuing innovations in the fields of operations research (O.R.), analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) with the goal of making smarter decisions for a better world.

Atlanta is a perfect setting for this year’s meeting. Over the past decade, the city has experienced a remarkable surge in both population and corporate expansion, reinforcing its status as a premier destination for businesses across industries, often drawn in part by access to top-tier universities. Since 2010, the 28‑county Atlanta metropolitan area grew by approximately 20%, adding more than 1 million new residents. Atlanta has long been home to a significant number of Fortune 500 companies and major U.S. and international firms that maintain headquarters (e.g., Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines, The Home Depot, Porsche, UPS) or major operations (e.g., Google, Hyundai, Microsoft, NCR, Norfolk Southern) in the metro area. Recently, Mercedes‑Benz announced expansion of its North American headquarters in Sandy Springs, adding a new R&D center by August 2026; Duracell will shift its R&D operations to Atlanta by mid‑2027; and Rivian is establishing its East Coast headquarters along the Beltline’s Eastside Trail, part of a multibillion-dollar investment tied to producing vehicles in Georgia starting in 2026. On the tech front, Micron Technology opened a memory design and R&D center in Midtown Atlanta in 2022.

Powering Smarter Decisions

The 2025 Annual Meeting agenda is packed with insightful sessions, dynamic plenary and keynote presentations and discussions, interactive workshops, and ample networking opportunities, as well as several pre-meeting events. Be sure to check the conference agenda and the INFORMS app for the most up-to-date information on tracks, topics and locations. You’ll have to use some optimization skills to plan your time in Atlanta and choose which of the thousands of presentations to attend.

Don’t miss our lineup of esteemed plenary and keynote speakers featuring experts in optimization, AI, analytics, quantum computing, social policy, supply chains, the environment and sports – all with the goal of making smarter decisions for a better world! A new event among the keynote sessions this year is a panel discussion among INFORMS Fellows, moderated by INFORMS President-Elect Mark Lewis, discussing the future of OR/MS, with topics ranging from AI, connections between industry and academia, the future landscape of research funding, new research directions, and the tools that we should provide to our students for maximum success and impact.

Plenary Speakers

• Margaret Brandeau (Stanford University), Opening Plenary, “Operations Research and Social Policy: Models That Can Make a Difference”
• Ramayya Krishnan (Carnegie Mellon University), “AI and Society”
• Eric Phillips (Delta Air Lines), “Delta at 100: Harnessing a Century of Insight to Power the Future of Travel with AI”
• Pascal Van Hentenryck (Georgia Tech), Closing Plenary, “Learning to Optimize: Foundations and Industrial Impact”

Keynote Speakers

• Carlos Coello Coello (CINVESTAV-IPN), IFORS Distinguished Lecture, “40 Years of Multiobjective Evolutionary Algorithms: Past, Present, and Future”
• Georgia Perakis (MIT), “AI and Decision-making in Operations Management”
• Ben Recht (University of California, Berkeley), “The Irrational Decision: How We Gave Computers the Power to Choose for Us”
• Sridhar Tayur (Carnegie Mellon University), “How Can INFORMS Contribute to the Second Quantum Revolution?”
• Yentai Wan (UPS Logistics), “The UPS Advantage: Integrated Network Powered by O.R. & AI”
• Andres Weintraub (Universidad de Chile), Omega-Rho Lecture, “O.R. and AI Tools to Support Forest Fire Prevention Decisions”
• Mark Lewis (moderator), John Birge, Julie Ivy, Phil Kaminsky, David Shmoys, INFORMS Fellows Panel, “OR/MS in an Ever-Evolving Environment: Perspectives from INFORMS Fellows”
• USA Cycling, 2025 INFORMS Franz Edelman Award Reprise, “Project 4:05 – Optimizing Olympic Gold Medal Performance for USA’s Women’s Team Pursuit”
• National University of Singapore, Business Analytics Center (BAC), UPS George D. Smith Prize Winner Reprise

Job Market Showcase and Career Fair

INFORMS is excited to introduce the Job Market Showcase Track, a new initiative designed to allow job seekers, including recent and soon-to-be graduates, to gain exposure by presenting their research and engaging with prospective employers in both academia and industry in a centralized setting and dedicated cluster. This new component of the program complements the Career Fair, which is designed to offer job seekers another excellent opportunity to explore a range of career options, meet with leading organizations, and engage in direct conversations with potential employers about job openings and career advancement. Employers can leverage the Career Fair to showcase their companies, discover talented candidates with specialized skills and build their teams with top professionals in the industry. With a focus on fostering meaningful connections and facilitating professional growth, this in-person Career Fair is a must-attend event for anyone looking to advance their career or find exceptional new talent.

Networking, Career Development and Recognition

You are invited to enhance your conference experience by participating in a variety of enriching pre-meeting workshops, poster sessions, technology showcases and TutORials at the 2025 INFORMS Annual Meeting.

Take advantage of the many pre-meeting workshops, which offer hands-on learning opportunities and in-depth explorations of cutting-edge methodologies and tools. Whether you are interested in advancing your skills in optimization, analytics or O.R., these events are designed to provide valuable insights and practical knowledge from leading experts in the field.

In addition, the TutORials sessions serve as an introduction to both emerging and classical subfields of O.R. and management science, allowing members of the INFORMS community to keep pace with new developments in the field and expand their expertise while networking with fellow professionals. This year, the TutORials track includes exciting presentations on methodological advances such as large-scale optimization, decision-making under uncertainty, reinforcement learning, responsible machine learning and quantum computing, as well as pressing societal and industry challenges such as the mental health crisis, cyber-physical system security, social media information operations, decarbonized energy systems, and the impact of wildfires on power systems.

The poster sessions and technology showcases are perfect for those who enjoy discovering the latest innovations and research breakthroughs. This year, the conference features an increased number of poster presentations on a diverse range of topics, allowing conference participants to engage in a more conversational way with presenters through dynamic presentations and interactive displays. Do not miss this opportunity to connect with fellow researchers, practitioners and students pushing the boundaries of our discipline.

Each year, INFORMS holds a Member Meeting to provide an opportunity for members to come together to celebrate achievements, embrace what’s ahead and honor our exceptional volunteers. This event celebrating INFORMS – your professional home – will be over breakfast on Tuesday morning.

Finally, please do not miss the INFORMS Awards Ceremony and INFORMS Student Chapter Annual Awards Ceremony. Here, you will have an opportunity to congratulate awardees and celebrate their achievements, honor the exceptional accomplishments of our student chapters and leaders, and share in the collective pride for our outstanding students.

Social Events

As every year, INFORMS will host a welcome reception on Sunday evening in the Georgia World Congress Center, where you can connect and reconnect with colleagues and meet exhibitors.

Once you’ve had your fill of celebrations, presentations, exhibits, posters and coffee, it’s time to put the notebooks and laptops away for an evening of (more) fun. The INFORMS After Hours! General Reception on Tuesday evening will be in one of the largest aquariums in the world, housing thousands of marine animals including whale sharks, manta rays, sea lions and penguins. Come mingle while exploring diverse aquatic environments and watching ocean life. Enjoy delicious bites and drinks while you connect with fellow attendees in this unique setting.

Last, but not least, Downtown Atlanta offers a diverse mix of attractions that reflect the city’s rich history, vibrant culture and modern development and is undergoing a period of dynamic transformation. The venue for the 2025 INFORMS Annual Meeting, the Georgia World Congress Center, is in this exciting and rapidly (re-)developing area of the city. The soaring architecture of Mercedes‑Benz Stadium, home to the Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta United, will host upcoming marquee events like World Cup 2026 and the 2028 Super Bowl. Adjoining is Centennial Yards, a $5 billion, 50‑acre redevelopment rising from the previously underutilized Gulch. It will mix residential towers, hotels and offices with a sprawling entertainment district due to open ahead of the World Cup 2026. These developments are reshaping Downtown Atlanta, turning the area into a vibrant destination with major sports and entertainment infrastructure, walkable mixed-use neighborhoods and cultural attractions.

Please also try to visit the Atlanta Beltline, one of the most ambitious urban renewal projects in the U.S. This transformative project is being built along 22 miles of former railroad corridors encircling central Atlanta and is reshaping the city into a more connected and walkable environment.

Check out more Atlanta highlights and attractions here!

On-site Help 

If you are on-site in Atlanta, be on the lookout for members of the INFORMS NavigatORs – the volunteer ambassadors who are available to help answer questions as you navigate the meeting. Whether it’s directions to registration, where the closing plenary is or what time the coffee breaks are, if you see an attendee wearing an INFORMS NavigatOR t-shirt or button (featuring our friend Padma P. Pathfinder), don’t hesitate to chat with them in the Exhibit Hall or stop them in the hallways – they are here to help new and devoted attendees alike.

Virtual Option

The 2025 INFORMS Annual Meeting features a new Virtual Access option for those who cannot make the trip to Atlanta. INFORMS knows that recent political changes have disrupted many in our global community. As a professional society for students and professionals worldwide, we stand firmly for open inquiry, free exchange of ideas and international collaboration – values vital to advancing operations research, analytics and all our related fields. 

Virtual Access includes listeno-only, live-streamed plenaries and keynotes, TutORials on Operations Research and interactive engagement on INFORMS Connect and in the INFORMS app. Click here for more information and pricing.

We’re listening, advocating and partnering with others to protect these principles and support you. 

We look forward to your participation in the 2025 INFORMS Annual Meeting – however that looks for you!