Ramayya Krishnan
William W. and Ruth F. Cooper Professor of Management Science and Information Systems; Dean Emeritus
Ramayya Krishnan is the W. W. Cooper and Ruth F. Cooper Professor of Management Science and Information Systems at Heinz College and the Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. A faculty member at CMU since 1988, Krishnan served as the Interim Dean of Heinz College in 2008 and served three terms as the Dean of Heinz College from 2009 -2025.
Krishnan was educated at the Indian Institute of Technology and the University of Texas at Austin. He has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, a master’s degree in industrial engineering and operations research, and a PhD in management science and information systems. He is an expert on digital transformation and has worked extensively with firms and policy makers on using technology and analytics to achieve policy goals. He is an expert on decision and data analytics and has seminal contributions to technology management and policy in AI, e-commerce, and informaton risk management. He has served as Department Editor of Management Science and seved in senior editorial roles in multiple INFORMS and Information engineering journals. His current research interests are in AI measurement and evaluation and in the implications that AI holds for the future of work.
Krishnan has been a serial academic entrepreneur. He founded the Master of Information Systems and Management program in 1998. The program grew from a founding cohort of 10 students to an intake of 120 students in a few years and now has alumni in leading tech companies throughout the world. The data analytics track of the program (BIDA) was chosen by the US Army Futures Command in 2020 to be part of its AI scholars program. In 2022, he and his colleagues at the Heinz College launched the Decision Analytics and Systems (DAS) program, an innovative undergraduate minor that combines systems thinking, analytics and experiential learning. INFORMS, the Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences, the leading organization of scholars and practitioners of analytics, recognized Heinz College in 2016 with the UPS George D. Smith Prize for educational excellence. Heinz College is the only educational institution that is home to both the Von Neumann Theory Prize and the UPS George D. Smith Prize from INFORMS.
Krishnan has founded 4 externally funded research centers raising close to $100M dollars over the course of the last decade. He was the founding faculty director (2019-2025) of the Block Center for Technology and Society and currently directs the AI Measurement Science and Engineering Center (AIMSEC). He is an American Association for the Advancement of Science - AAAS Fellow (section T), an INFORMS Fellow, an elected member of the National Academy of Public Administration and a commissioner of the Geotech Center of the Atlantic Council.
Krishnan has extensive experience and expertise in AI governance and public policy. He chaired the AI Futures committee of the National AI Advisory Committe to the President and the White House Office of AI initiatives (2022-2025). He chairs the Responsible AI academic council of the CDAO of the DOD and is an ambassador with the UK RAI council.
He is a distinguished alumnus of both the Indian institute of Technology and the University of Texas at Austin. He served in 2019 as the 25th President of INFORMS, the Global Operations Research and Analytics Society.
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