ACADEMIC POSITIONS

• The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas (August 2008 - Present)
  Assistant Professor, Operations Research/ Industrial Engineering
  Assistant Professor, Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering
  Fellow, Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy
  Fellow, Center for Petroleum Asset Risk Management
  
  Research: Decision analysis, corporate and individual risk preference, value of information, applications of copulas and maximum entropy, auditing and scoring of expert forecasts, applications of decision analysis to business and public policy—especially energy and climate change, applications of decision analysis to strategy in sport.
  
  Teaching: Decision analysis, real options, applied probability, engineering finance
  
  
• Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas (August 2004 - August 2008)
  Assistant Professor, Industrial and Systems Engineering
  
  
• Stanford University, Stanford, California (August 1994 - June 1999)
  Teaching Assistant, Decision Analysis Program (1999)
  Lead Teaching Assistant, Decision Analysis Program (1996-1998)
  Research Assistant, Energy Modeling Forum (1994-1995)
  
  

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

• Strategic Decisions Group, Houston, Texas and Palo Alto, California
  Senior Engagement Manager and Co-Lead Client Education (1995 – 2004)
  Outside Consultant (2004 – present)
  
  Focus: Worked primarily with senior executives to apply decision and risk analysis techniques to the most important decisions facing some of the world’s largest corporations.


Industry Experience (North America, South America, Europe and Asia): Fortune 100 companies in upstream oil and gas (exploration, development, and production), power (generation, transmission, and delivery), energy trading and marketing, metals and mining, chemicals (commodity and specialty), financial services, life sciences (pharmaceuticals, biotech, and medical devices), agriculture, building services, printing and publishing, and packaging.

Professional Services: Decision and risk analysis, real options, corporate/business unit/asset strategy, R&D portfolio management, economic valuation, stochastic price forecasting, financial engineering, and decision analysis training. Teaching: Trained hundreds of consultants and executives charged with strategic decision making.

• Competitive Edge Decision Systems, Austin, Texas
  President and Founder (2000 – present)
  
  Established, developed, and managed enterprise designed to market proprietary baseball/softball decision support and data-mining software (ChartMine®). Originally developed for Stanford baseball. Used by over 300 collegiate baseball and softball teams. Also used by ESPN during the 2005 College World Series. Named top product by Collegiate Baseball Newspaper three consecutive years. Featured on TechTV.
  
  
• Pacific Northwest Laboratories, Richland, Washington
  Intern, Decision and Risk Analysis Group (Summer 1994)
  Associated Western Universities Fellowship
  
  
• Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, and Livermore, CA
  Intern, Combustion Research Facility (Summer 1991, June 1992-August 1993)
  Intern, Intelligent Systems Department (Summer 1989, Summer 1990)
  Outstanding Student Program and Associated Western Universities Fellowship
  
  

EDUCATION

• Stanford University, Stanford, California
  Ph.D., Engineering-Economic Systems (June 1999)
  M.S., Engineering-Economic Systems (June 1994)
  
  Concentration: decision analysis, probability, optimization, dynamic systems and control, economics, and applications to business and public policy.
  
  Dissertation: "The Corporate Contractual System and Normative Corporate Risk Attitude" (Reading Committee: Ronald A. Howard, Advisor, James E. Smith, John Weyant, Blake Johnson)
  
• New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico
  B.S., with Honors, Mechanical Engineering (December 1992)
  Minor, Economics.
  Outstanding Senior, Department of Mechanical Engineering
  Outstanding Senior, College of Engineering
  

RESEARCH INTERESTS

• Decision analysis
• Corporate and individual risk preference
• Value of information
• Application of copulas and maximum entropy
• Auditing and scoring of expert forecasts
• Applications of decision analysis to business and public policy in the energy sector

AWARDS

• 2006 INFORMS Decision Analysis Society Practice Award
• 2006 INFORMS Student Chapter, Appreciation Award for Faculty
• 2005 INFORMS Young Researcher Roundtable

I am an assistant professor in both the Graduate Program in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering (ORIE) and the Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering (PGE) at The University of Texas at Austin (UT). The ORIE program is an "area" within the Department of Mechanical Engineering. In addition to these appointments, I am a fellow in the Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy (CIEEP) and the Center for Petroleum Asset Risk Management (CPARM).

My research and teaching interests are broadly focused in the area of decision making under uncertainty. My primary application area is in the energy arena. If you want to learn more about my work and research interests, visit my research page.

I hold MS an PhD degrees in Engineering-Economic Systems from Stanford University and a BS in Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Economics from New Mexico State University. Before joining the UT faculty, I was an assistant professor at Texas A&M University. Before that, I was a senior engagement manager and co-director of client education for Strategic Decisions Group.

I teach courses in the areas of decision analysis, applied probability, and engineering finance. For more on my teaching interests and course home pages, go on to my teaching page.

ebickel@utexas.edu