Director of the interdisciplinary Master of Science in Analytics and
Harold E. Smalley Professor
Education
- Ph.D. Operations Research (1999), Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- B.S., B.A. Applied Sciences in Engineering; Mathematics; Computer Science (1994), Rutgers University
Expertise
- Analytics
- Applied Operations Research
- Sports Analytics
- Data Science and Machine Learning
- Artificial Intelligence
About
Joel Sokol is the Harold E. Smalley Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech, with a joint appointment in the College of Lifetime Learning. He is also founding Director of Georgia Tech's interdisciplinary Master of Science in Analytics degree (on campus and online).
His primary research interests are in the application of AI, data science, and analytics in a variety of areas, including sports, medicine, supply chains, logistics, and manufacturing. He has worked with teams or leagues in all three of the major American sports. Dr. 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.
Dr. Sokol has also won recognition for his teaching and curriculum development from IIE, INFORMS, and the NAE, and is the recipient of Georgia Tech's highest awards for teaching. 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. His primary teaching interests are in training outstanding professionals in applied analytics, data science, and AI.
Dr. Sokol's Ph.D. in operations research is from MIT, and his bachelor's degrees in mathematics, computer science, and applied sciences in engineering are from Rutgers University.
Research
Dr. Sokol's primary research interests are in the application of AI, data science, and analytics in a variety of areas, including sports, medicine, supply chains, logistics, and manufacturing. He is especially interested in using these tools to help gain insights and make better decisions.
Teaching
Dr. Sokol's primary teaching interest is training outstanding professionals in applied analytics, data science, and AI. His focus is on the art of modeling, including understanding the situation, choosing appropriate data and models, interpreting the results, and converting those results into actionable solutions; and in the verbal and visual storytelling required for insights to be internalized and solutions to be adopted.
Awards and Honors
- Harold E. Smalley Professorship 2023-present
- Technology Association of Georgia Data Science & AI Innovator Award Nominee 2024
- CTL Teaching Excellence Award for Online Teaching 2023
- Chief Data Officer Magazine Academic Data Leader 2023, 2021
- AECT Distance Education Crystal Award, Third Place 2020
- edX Prize Finalist 2020
- MS Analytics Outstanding Faculty Award 2018
- Class of 1940 W. Howard Ector Outstanding [Tenured] Teacher Award 2014
- Keynote Speaker, EURO/INFORMS 2013
- Fouts Family Early Career Professorship 2013 - present
- IIE/CIEADH Innovations in Curriculum Award 2012
- NAE Foundations of Engineering Education Symposium 2011
- IIE Excellence in the Teaching of Operations Research Award 2010
- Class of 1934 Outstanding Use of Innovative Educational Technology Award 2010
- Hesburgh Award Teaching Fellow 2009
- Class of 1940 W. Roane Beard Outstanding [Pre-Tenure] Teacher Award 2008
- EURO Management Science Strategic Innovation Prize 2007
- ANAK Award 2005
Representative Publications
D. Wang, A. Elhabr, D. Balta, J. Chhatwal, N. Kanibir, K. Russell, J. Sokol, and Y-H Chen, “Obtaining Diverse Pediatric Vaccination Scheduling Solutions in Seconds with a User-Friendly Decision-Aid Tool”, European Society for Paediatric Infectious Diseases (2025).
J. Watts and J. Sokol, “A Voter-Based Stochastic Rejection-Method Framework for Asymptotically Safe Language Model Outputs”, arXiv:2407.16994 (2025).
G.A. Muller, S. Hood, and J. Sokol, “Randomness, Uncertainty, and the Optimal College Football Championship Tournament Size”, Journal of Sports Analytics 9(1) pp. 1-37 (2023).
Z. Yu, P. Keskinocak, J. Sokol, and Y-H Chen, “Flexible Analytic Model to Inform Multi-Stakeholder Pediatric Vaccine Scheduling Decisions”, Vaccine 40(52), pp. 7631-7639 (2022).
E. Mark, D. Goldsman, B. Gurbaxani, P. Keskinocak, J. Sokol, “Using Machine Learning and an Ensemble of Methods to Predict Kidney Transplant Survival and Rank Predictive Variables”, PLoS ONE 14(1) e0209068. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0209068 (2019).
B. Cavdar and J. Sokol, “A Computation-Implementation Parallelization Approach to the Vehicle Loading and Routing Problem”, Networks 73, pp. 119-134 (2019).
H. Smalley, N. Anand, D. Buczek, N. Buczek, T. Lin, T. Rajore, M. Wacker, S. Basavaraju, B. Gurbaxani, T. Hammett, P. Keskinocak, J. Sejbar, J. Sokol, and M. Kuehnert, “Assessment of Risk for Transplant-Transmissible Infectious Encephalitis Due to Emerging Pathogens Among Deceased Liver Donors”, Transplant Infectious Disease 20 (2018).
P. Kerl, W. Zhang, J. Moreno-Cruz, A. Nenes, M. Realff, A. Russell, J. Sokol, and V.M. Thomas, “A New Approach for Optimal Electricity Planning and Dispatching with Hourly Time-Scale Air Quality and Health Considerations” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112 (2015), pp. 10884-10889.
K. Bartlett, J. Lee, S. Ahmed, G. Nemhauser, J. Sokol, and B. Na, "Congestion-Aware Dynamic Routing in Automated Material Handling Systems", Computers and Industrial Engineering 70, 167-182 (2014).
B. Na, S. Ahmed, G. Nemhauser, and J. Sokol, "Optimization of Automated Float Glass Lines", International Journal of Production Economics 145(2), 561-572 (2013).
N. Streib, S. Young, and J. Sokol, “A Major League Baseball Team Uses Operations Research for Draft Preparation”, Interfaces 42 (2012), pp. 119-130.
L. Houghtalen, O. Ergun, and J. Sokol, “Designing Mechanisms for the Management of Carrier Alliances,” Transportation Science 45 (2011), pp. 465-482.
P.H. Kvam and J. Sokol, “A Logistic Regression/Markov Chain Model for College Basketball Rankings,” Naval Research Logistics 53 (2006), pp. 788-803.
D.M. Strickland, E. Barnes, and J. Sokol “Optimal Protein Structure Alignment Using Maximum Cliques,” Operations Research 53 (2005), pp. 389-402.
J. Sokol, “A Robust Heuristic for Batting Order Optimization Under Uncertainty,” Journal of Heuristics 9 (2003), pp. 353-370.