Jeff Baker is the Modeling and Analytics Manager for Southern Power’s Commercial Optimization, Trading, and Transmission organization. Southern Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company, is a leading US wholesale energy provider meeting the electricity needs of municipalities, electric cooperatives, investor-owner utilities, and other energy customers. Jeff’s group manages data analytics and optimization that support the commercial functions of Southern Power’s generation assets. This includes complex reporting requirements and energy trading.
Jeff has been with Southern Company for over 16 years and has held numerous positions that span energy trading, transmission planning, portfolio management, and wholesale contracts. Jeff hold’s a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

With over 30 years of industry experience in high tech enterprise product R&D, Chantal is the Vice President of AI/ML Solutions at Kinaxis. She is that forefront of driving cutting-edge advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning in Supply Chain Management. She holds several patents in this field and leads a team of creative innovators, researchers and platform developers who bring the power of this technology to the Kinaxis business user.

Kyle Corley is an Analyst in Southern Power’s Commercial Optimization, Trading, and Transmission organization. He is responsible for providing analytical support to Southern Power’s Energy Trading group to optimize Southern Power’s renewable assets. Kyle develops and maintains models in support of Real-Time and Day-Ahead price forecasting in SPP, ERCOT, PJM, and MISO.
Kyle has been with Southern Company for over 15 years, holding several positions across energy trading, asset optimization, renewable integration, and software development. He led efforts in the development of short-term load forecast, solar and wind generation forecast, and asset optimization software. Kyle holds a degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from Samford University.

Arun Giri is the Head of Platform Engineering & Lead Enterprise Engineer for Tech at Union Pacific Railroad. Arun’s responsibilities there include leading the Platform Engineering Group, the Enterprise Architecture group and responsible for technical decisions across Tech.

Arun is a transformation specialist who has built and led several high performing Engineering and Product teams during his tenure at UP. As part of the Union Pacific’s digital transformation strategy, Arun is currently leading the buildout of a Cloud Native Data Insights platform which will enable the company to deploy mission critical predictive and prescriptive AI/ML products rapidly on a modern MLOps pipeline. This initiative is in support of company’s growth initiative and transformation programs aimed at enabling Intelligent automation, advance analytics and IoT integrations.

Arun is one of the pioneer members of the elite "Distinguished Technologist" group at Union Pacific Railroad.  He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering from the University of Mysore and a Masters in MIS from the University of Nebraska. He now lives in Omaha with his wife and son.

Dr. Warren Hearnes is Vice President & Chief Data Scientist at Best Buy, responsible for the data science vision, strategy, and execution at the consumer electronics retailer. He leads a team of 45+ data scientists that elevates the use of AI, ML, and optimization to solve problems across marketing, store operations, supply chain, labor planning, and scheduling. As a long-time resident of Atlanta, Warren is helping build Best Buy’s presence here with its recently formed Atlanta Technology & Analytics Hub.

Warren earned a BS in Mathematics – Operations Research from the United States Military Academy in 1989. He served with distinction as a field artillery officer in the 25th ID and is a graduate of US Army Airborne School and US Army Ranger School. After serving in the US Army, Warren moved to Atlanta in 1992 to attend Georgia Tech for grad school where his dissertation research was in the area of reinforcement learning for robotic control. Graduating with an MS in Operations Research and a PhD in Industrial Engineering, he has worked in various analytics and data science roles in Atlanta for Lucent Technologies, UPS, The Home Depot, Cardlytics, and now Best Buy.

Tejas Santanam serves as Research Engineer for Beep, where he leverages his experience working in transit research, primarily in a multimodal transit optimization context, in his work on fleet-scale routing, scheduling, and passenger experience. He has also consulted for transit work in bus stop infrastructure, EV charging, and transit equity. While at Georgia Tech, Tejas helped launch the MARTA Reach service in Atlanta. He also serves as a Lecturer in Georgia Tech's School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, where he teaches Constraint Programming and Network Science courses. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering and Master of Science in Analytics from Georgia Tech.

Wes Strait is a seasoned leader with over 20 years of experience in technology, business, and management consulting. He is passionate about enriching lives through technology and solving complex problems with data and analytics.

As the Director of Technology Transformation at Best Buy, he leads several key functions within the Analytics team, including External Engagement, Analytics Delivery, and Managed Service Providers. He leverages his expertise in strategic management consulting, continuous improvement, operational excellence, and agile mindset to create best-in-class solutions and foster a culture of innovation and collaboration. Wes holds an MBA from the University of Minnesota - Carlson School of Management, as well as an undergraduate Management Information Systems BSB degree.
 

Dr. Nurali Virani is a Senior Scientist - Machine Learning at GE Vernova Advanced Research. He has led teams to develop and deliver AI-based solutions for GE Digital and GE Onshore Wind. His work has also been supported by ARPA-E, DARPA, ARL, and AFOSR. He has experience with AI, trustworthy ML, decision-making under uncertainty, and digital twins with applications in grid, wind energy, gas power, nuclear plants, and robotics. He was awarded GE Research CTO Technology Award for Outstanding Research in 2018, the GE CTO Leadership Award (for Partners in Progress) in 2022, as well as 2019 ASME Rudolph Kalman Best Paper Award. Dr. Virani has 30+ peer-reviewed publications and 8 patents in the AI/ML field.