Manoj Chari

Manoj Chari is an expert in data science, business analytics and operations research.

He teaches courses in business analytics at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Dr. Chari has held a variety academic and industry positions.

He joined UNC Kenan-Flagler from the Love School of Business at Elon University, where he also was director of the Center for Organizational Analytics.

He served as a director of data science at Otis Elevator Company, where he led a team of data scientists working on predictive analytics models for elevator health, developed and implemented on an Internet of Things (IoT) platform.

He spent 16 years at SAS Institute Inc. where he reached the position of senior director in the analytics research and development division, leading a department of over 50 research level analytics experts in operations research, machine learning and network analysis.

Dr. Chari played a leadership role in re-building SAS operations research related software products and creating a consulting services group focused on operations research and advanced analytics customer engagements. His department supported analytical components of SAS business applications software for many industry verticals, including financial services, retail, health and life sciences, and manufacturing. He received the SAS CEO Award of Excellence in 2008.

Prior to his industry career, Dr. Chari was an associate professor of mathematics at Louisiana State University. His research in combinatorics and operations research was supported by the National Security Agency and the Louisiana Board of Regents. He received the Alexander Von Humboldt Research Fellowship for early career researchers, which supported an academic year visit to the Technical University of Berlin.

Throughout his career he has been actively involved in INFORMS, playing a leadership role in its major activities including organization of conferences and serving on the Edelman Prize and Wagner Prize committees. He was chair of its 2015 business analytics conference and served as the practice activities chair for several annual conferences. He represented SAS on the INFORMS Roundtable, a network of industry leaders of operations research and analytics groups.

He serves on the editorial board of the INFORMS Journal of Applied Analytics.

In 2020, he was elected a fellow of INFORMS for outstanding career contributions to the practice of   operations research and management sciences in recognition of his leadership contributions at SAS and INFORMS.

He received his PhD in operations research from UNC and his B.Tech. in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology.