Who We Are: Team
Core Team
Dr. Eric K. Clemons
Chair and President
Dr. Clemons is Professor Emeritus of Operations, Information, and Decisions at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Most recently he began the study of decision-making in the presence of deep uncertainty.
His research historically focused on the strategic and competitive implications of information technology. He was a pioneer in the development of the field of information economics within business schools. He did early studies of industries where eCommerce would and would not provide opportunities for primary producers like airlines and consumer packaged goods companies to sell online. He studied areas where outsourcing could and could not be managed safely. He explored where innovations could provide competitive advantage and where they could best be implemented less expensively as consortia. He studied products that sold most effectively with online “word of mouse” referrals rather than traditional advertising. He shifted focus to areas where research could benefit entire societies rather than individual companies or industries. He was among the first researchers to study Google’s monopoly on online search, as distinct from and more powerful than online advertising. He was among the first to study social media’s role in manipulation of public opinion and its ability to influence elections and referendums, and among the first to model mechanisms to control disinformation campaigns on social media.
Dr. Clemons taught and conducted research in diverse industries, including travel, finance, insurance, consumer packaged goods, non-profits, and the military. He has taught and conducted research in the US, and in Australia, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Singapore, and the UK. He created and for more than 30 years directed Wharton’s Funded Research Program on Strategic and Competitive Information Systems. He has an S.B. in Physics from MIT and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Operations Research and Computer Science from Cornell University.
Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr., Esq.
Fellow and Corporate Secretary
Ms. Gray is an expert in complex negotiation and the formation and management of strategic alliances and other forms of inter-organizational collaboration, founding and managing several global consulting firms. She is also a poet, critic, and translator of classical and contemporary Persian poetry.
With Harvard Law Professor Roger Fisher, Director of the Harvard Negotiation Project and co-author of Getting to YES, the international best-selling book on negotiation, she co-founded and served as CEO of Conflict Management, Inc. and Conflict Management Group, international boutique consulting firms focused on the process by which individuals and organizations make complex decisions and deal with differences within and between organizations. She also founded Alliance Management Partners, LLC, a consulting firm that helped clients optimize the value of technology-related alliances. She was a Senior Fellow in the Wharton Program on Global Strategy and Knowledge-Intensive Organizations, and a Senior Consultant with the Philadelphia Group, which specialized in scenario development and long-range planning for global corporations and governments.
Her consulting practice is focused on the formation, management, and repair of complex inter- and intra-organizational relationships. Value creation in this context depends on the parties’ ability to develop creative solutions while ensuring that coordination and protective costs do not diminish the expected economic value envisioned by the collaborating organizations. Recent research and advisory work has focused on the risks, uncertainty, and stakeholder relationships critical to projects in emerging economies and post-conflict societies.
She serves on the Boards of various literary organizations and on the Board of the Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Iran (Washington, DC). She holds a B.A. from Radcliffe College, Harvard University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in Cambridge, MA, and an MFA from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, Swannanoa, NC. She is based in New York City.
Dr. Nat Irvin, II
Fellow
Dr. Nat Irvin is a futurist, educator, author, innovator, and composer whose work helps leaders imagine and prepare for the future with courage, creativity, and civic purpose. He serves as Assistant Dean for Thought Leadership and Civic Engagement at the University of Louisville College of Business, where he helped build forward-looking programs that connect students, executives, and community leaders to emerging ideas. At UofL, he teaches and develops work in leadership, change management, team dynamics, and the future of management.
A nationally recognized voice on future trends, Dr. Irvin has advised leadership and management teams across business, education, and civic sectors, including Fortune 100 companies. He is the founder of Thrivals, a signature IdeaFestival program created to engage young people and global innovators in conversations about transformation, resilience, and possibility. Before joining the University of Louisville, he led Future Focus 2020, an urban futurist think tank that became part of Wake Forest University’s Babcock Graduate School of Management, where he served as Executive Professor of Future Studies and Assistant Dean for MBA Student Development.
Dr. Irvin’s career spans academia, media, music, and social innovation. He has been a radio and television commentator, including work with NPR’s Weekend Edition, and has served as a futurist and thought partner for organizations like the National Black MBA Association and the Executive Leadership Council. He has also contributed as chief learning officer and musical consultant for Janelle Monáe and the Wondaland Arts Society.
He earned a B.A. in Philosophy and a master’s degree in Media Arts from the University of South Carolina, a Doctor of Musical Arts in Music Composition from the University of North Texas, and completed Harvard University’s Institute for Educational Management. Honors include the H. Naylor Fitzhugh Award of Relevance and the University of Louisville College of Business Faculty Service Award.
Dr. Steven O. Kimbrough
Fellow and Coordinator of Educational Efforts
Dr. Kimbrough is Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions, and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a decision scientist who specializes in computational methods for supporting and improving decision making. He teaches and does research on business analytics and modeling (see his book Business Analytics for Decision Making with H.C. Lau), interdependent decision making (see his book Agents, Games, and Evolution: Strategies at Work and Play), and decision modeling for energy and sustainability, and for redistricting. He received his advanced degrees, in philosophy and in industrial engineering, at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Dr. Kimbrough directs the Climate Decisions Lab at the University of Pennsylvania, which focuses on energy and sustainability policy-making at the local (county and municipality) level. He is co-Principal Investigator (with Prof. Rand Quinn) in the “Climate and Sustainability Policy Deliberation” project.
Dr. Kimbrough has long had an interest in policy matters. At the age of 21 he was appointed as a member to a state policy making and agency governance board in Wisconsin, the youngest person to serve in that capacity. Several years later, he was elected Chair. Among other forms of policy involvement, he had at the time a successful lobbying business in Wisconsin. His policy foci today are mainly on redistricting and on the energy transition. On both topics, he is actively developing algorithms and computational decision support tools, as well as developing policies that will improve outcomes.
In 2012, he developed an algorithm that successfully discovered good redistricting plans for Philadelphia City Council. This work was part of a larger team effort on redistricting, which was recognized as a finalist in the 2012 competition for the Wagner Prize of INFORMS.
Dr. Gregory P. Prastacos
Fellow
Dr. Prastacos is a Professor of Management Science at the Stevens School of Business. He holds a bachelor’s and a master’s in Computer Science and a doctorate in Operations Research, all from Columbia University. Before joining Stevens he was Professor of Management Science and Rector of the Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB), Athens, Greece. Prior to AUEB, he was on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. He has held visiting appointments at several Universities and Research Institutes in Europe and Asia.
Dr. Prastacos’s research interests are in the areas of analytics, innovation and technology management, and digital transformation. He has published 11 books and monographs and more than 60 papers in international academic journals and edited volumes. His papers have appeared in the top journals in his field, such as Management Science, Operations Research, Journal of Management, Journal of Business Ethics, Information and Management, Long Range Planning, and others.
His work on the logistics of perishable inventory received the Edelman Award by TIMS/INFORMS. His work on absorptive capacity was selected among the best papers of the Academy of Management. In 2008, INFORMS honored him with an Honorary Medal for significant achievements in Operations Research. He has received numerous teaching excellence and exceptional contribution awards.
Dr. Prastacos served as dean at Stevens (2012- 2024), and as Rector of AUEB (2007-2011). Dr. Prastacos is the Co-Chair of AACSB’s Digital Transformation Affinity Group and the Principal Investigator of MaCuDE — an international program sponsored by AACSB and supported by more than 100 business schools globally to revise the management curriculum for the digital era. He is an elected Fellow of the Washington Academy of Sciences, serves on the editorial board of several academic journals, and is on the board of his home school, Athens College.
Dr. Daniel Rock
Fellow
Dr. Rock is an Assistant Professor of Operations, Information, and Decisions at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, currently on leave as a Principal Research Scientist in AI and Economics at Google. His research examines the economic effects of digital technologies, with a particular focus on the economics of artificial intelligence. His recent work studies which occupations are most exposed to AI, how AI-related skills create value for firms, and how productivity measurement can better account for investments in intangible assets. Much of his work combines economic analysis with modern data science methods, using data from financial markets, online resume platforms, and job postings to study how digital technologies shape firms, workers, and productivity. Dr. Rock received his B.S. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also a cofounder of Workhelix, an AI startup that helps companies “Know and Grow the ROI of their AI”. Before graduate school, he worked as an Algorithmic Trader at DRW Trading.
Dr. Andrej Savin
Fellow
Dr. Savin is a professor in IT Law and Internet Law at Copenhagen Business School. His research concentrates on regulation of information technology from the European and comparative perspective. His main contribution is the understanding of how different EU regulatory approaches affect business models, value creation, strategy and organisational aspects in a company. He has conducted externally funded empirical research based on Danish and international companies.
Dr. Savin’s latest research concentrates on risk-based regulation as the main regulatory tool for the digital world in the EU. He has followed how the EU laws and policy on data protection, platforms, cybersecurity and the AI have been formed and how they affect companies. His main idea is that new risk-based laws not only deal with but are themselves a source of permanent uncertainty which the companies need to learn to deal with and turn to their advantage. In that sense, he looks at how standardisation, guidelines, internal procedures and general corporate practices affect the process of risk identification and mitigation.
Dr. Savin teaches Law & Management, Digital Business Models and Regulation and several other disciplines related to regulatory approaches and business strategy. He has served as head of the law department at CBS from 2021 to 2023. He is the author of many articles and several major books on EU digital regulation including EU Internet Law, Research Handbook on EU Internet Law, EU Telecommunications Law and others. He holds an LL.M. from Central European University and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge.
Dr. Maximilian Schreieck
Fellow
Dr. Schreieck is an Associate Professor for Information Systems with a focus on Digital Services and Platforms at the Department of Information Systems, Production and Logistics Management at the University of Innsbruck. He earned his Ph.D. in Information Systems at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in 2020 and completed his habilitation at the University of Innsbruck in 2025. From 2021 to 2022, he was a visiting scholar and DFG Walter Benjamin Fellow at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Schreieck’s research interests include digital platform ecosystems, platform governance, digital platforms for social causes, and digital transformation of established companies. Specifically, he studies how established companies can successfully transform a traditional pipeline business into a platform business that leverages outside actors for innovation. He has collaborated with multiple leading European software and manufacturing firms on implementing platform strategies. Dr. Schreieck is also interested in the dominance of a few big tech companies and their implications for European companies. Additionally, he explores how digital platforms can enhance social causes such as social justice, and he contributes to social mission platforms such as the Integreat platform, an information platform for refugees in Germany.
His research has been published in leading journals, including the Journal of Management Information Systems,MIS Quarterly, Journal of the AIS, Information Systems Journal, European Journal of Information Systems, Journal of Information Technology, Business & Information Systems Engineering, and Electronic Markets.