Jeremy Bloom, IBM Sr. Product Marketing Manager, ILOG Optimization

Dr. Jeremy Bloom has more than 25 years of business experience applying operations research and optimization. He joined IBM/ILOG in 2007, serving as a Technical Account Manager and later as Product Marketing Manager for the optimization product line. Before that Dr. Bloom was a member of the research staff at the Electric Power Research Institute, a non-profit consortium of US and International utilities conducting advanced research for the power industry. While at EPRI, Dr. Bloom both managed and served as a technical contributor on a variety of programs including planning, market assessment, and asset management.

In addition, Dr. Bloom was one of the founders and a principal of Primen, a start up company focused on market research and analysis for emerging retail electricity and gas markets. Prior to joining EPRI, Dr. Bloom worked for General Public Utilities (now part of First Energy) where he was responsible for demand-side management and retail market program design. Dr. Bloom taught Operations Research at Cornell University, where he conducted research on electric power planning. He was one of the principal developers of EPRI’s EGEAS resource planning model.

Shmuel S. Oren, University of California at Berkeley

Shmuel S. Oren is the Earl J. Isaac Chair Professor in the Science and Analysis of Decision Making in the Industrial Engineering and Operations Research department at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the Berkeley site director of PSERC – a multi-university Power System Engineering Research Center sponsored by the National Science Foundation and industry members. His academic research focuses on optimization-based planning and scheduling of power systems and on various aspects of electricity market design and regulation. He has been a consultant to various private and government organizations in the US and abroad and recently served as Senior Adviser to the Market Oversight Division of the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) and as a consultant to the Energy Division of the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC). He holds B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the Technion in Israel and also M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Engineering Economic Systems in 1972 from Stanford University. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and of INFORMS.

Bart Thielbar, Sierra Energy Group, a Division of Energy Central

Bart Thielbar is a senior research analyst for Sierra Energy Group, the research and analysis division of Energy Central. Thielbar is also President of Itility Solutions, LLC, which he founded in early 2009. Itility provides executive advisory and consultative services regarding business process optimization and technology investments, including those related to the Smart Grid. Prior to forming Itility Solutions, LLC, Thielbar held various executive level positions, including serving as the Sr. Vice-President and CIO of NorthWestern Energy. 

Thielbar also is a former chair of the Edison Electric Institute's (EEI) and American Gas Association's (AGA) Technology Advisory Council (TAC). He holds his certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) designation from the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA).

Carlos Mario Correa received his MSc. in Systems Engineering from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in 2008 and obtained his Electrical Engineer degree from the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana in 2004. He has worked for XM, Compañía de Expertos en Mercados, since 2004. XM operates the National Interconnected System and administers the Wholesale Energy Market in Colombia. During his time at XM, Carlos has worked in the areas of Economic Dispatch and Energy Planning and is a Modeling Developer for Planning and Operation Applications in Power Systems.