Hello members,
I am following up on a Connect post from March 6, 2026, in which I announced that the INFORMS Nominating Committee had completed its responsibility of developing the 2026 Slate of Nominees for the 2027 Board of Directors.
Today, I am announcing that, for the first time in recent memory, a member has been added to the President-Elect ballot through the petition process. All three candidates for 2027 President-Elect have submitted their official candidate statements, which will be published in the upcoming issue of OR/MS Today.
The following candidates make up the complete slate for the 2026 election. The INFORMS election will open on August 24 and close on September 30.
We have received some questions about the two nomination processes, so a brief explanation of each is below. If you have additional questions, please email election@informs.org.
For the 2026 Election for the 2027 INFORMS Board of Directors
President-Elect, in alphabetical order, by last name:
- Sheldon Jacobson (Candidacy by petition)
- Stefan Karisch (Selected by the INFORMS Nominating Committee)
- Jonathan Owen (Selected by the INFORMS Nominating Committee)
The following candidates were selected by the INFORMS Nominating Committee:
- Treasurer: Jim Bander, Banafsheh Behzad
- VP Emerging Fields & Technologies: David Shmoys, Jiaxi Zhu
- VP Education: Ruben Proano, Gabriela Gongora Svartzman
- VP Meetings: Sandra Eksioglu, Scott Mason
- VP Publications: Alok Gupta, Burak Kazaz
About the President-Elect Candidates
Candidates selected by the INFORMS Nominating Committee (Stefan Karisch and Jonathan Owen) are placed on the ballot as a result of the INFORMS Nominating Committee process, in which candidates are evaluated and selected by a committee whose members are approved by the INFORMS Board of Directors. To be considered, interested members complete a detailed expression of interest articulating their vision for INFORMS, their qualifications, their relevant board and committee experience, and their ability to meet the role's time commitments. The Nominating Committee reviews all submissions, evaluates each individual, and then creates a slate of candidates so the overall composition of the Board of Directors meets the strategic needs of INFORMS.
Petition candidate (Sheldon Jacobson) is placed on the ballot in accordance with INFORMS Bylaws 3.4, which allows any INFORMS member who collects signatures from 2.5% of the total INFORMS membership to stand for election.
For more information on either process, please see INFORMS Policies and Procedures 4.5, Nominations and Elections for the Board.
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Pelin Pekgun
INFORMS Secretary
Department Chair, Thomas H. Davis Professor in Business, Professor of Analytics
Wake Forest University
Winston-Salem NC
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