J. Eric Bickel is a Professor and Director of the Graduate Program in Operations Research & Industrial Engineering (Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering). In addition, he is the Program Director for the Engineering Management master’s program offered through the Cockrell School Texas Engineering Executive Education. He holds a courtesy appointment in the Department of Petroleum Engineering.

Professor Bickel’s research interests include the theory and practice of decision analysis. His work has addressed the modeling of probabilistic dependence, value of information, scoring rules, calibration, risk preference, decision education, decision making in sports, and climate engineering as a response to climate change. His research has been covered in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Financial Times, Sports Illustrated and the MLB Network, to name a few. In addition, Professor Bickel and his research are featured in the documentary Cool It. His research into climate engineering was named as the top approach to address climate change by a panel of economists, including four Nobel Laureates.

Prior to returning to academia, Professor Bickel was a Senior Engagement Manager and Co-Director of Client Education for Strategic Decisions Group, where he remains on the Board of Directors. He has consulted around the world in a range of industries, including oil and gas, electricity generation/transmission/delivery, energy trading and marketing, commodity and specialty chemicals, life sciences, financial services, and metals and mining.

Professor Bickel is Past-President of the Decision Analysis Society and is a Fellow of the Society of Decision Professionals. He holds an MS and PhD from the Department of Engineering-Economic Systems at Stanford University and a BS in Mechanical Engineering, with a minor in Economics, from New Mexico State University.

Address: Graduate Program in Operations Research, 1 University Station, C2200, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, 78712-0292; email: ebickel@utexas.edu.

Selected Publications

1. Hadlock, Christopher and J. Eric Bickel. 2017. "Johnson Quantile-Parameterized Distributions." Decision Analysis 14(1) 21-34. doi: 10.1287/deca.2016.0343. Finalist 2018 Decision Analysis Journal Special Recognition Award.
2. Montiel, Luis V. and J. Eric Bickel. 2014. “A Generalized Sampling Approach for Multilinear Utility Functions Given Partial Preference Information.” Decision Analysis 11(3) 147-170. doi: 10.1287/deca.2014.0296.
3. Bickel, J. Eric and Shubham Agrawal. 2013. “Reexamining the economics of aerosol geoengineering.” Climatic Change 119(3) 993-1006. doi: 10.1007/s10584-012-0619-x.
4. Montiel, Luis V. and J. Eric Bickel. 2012. “A Simulation-Based Approach to Decision Making with Partial Information.” Decision Analysis 9(4) 329-347. doi: 10.1287/deca.1120.0252.
5. Bickel, J. Eric. 2007. “Some Comparisons among Quadratic, Spherical, and Logarithmic Scoring Rules.” Decision Analysis 4(2) 49-65. doi: 10.1287/deca.1070.0089.

Most Recent Publications

1. Huang, Tao and J. Eric Bickel. 2019. "Sparse Probability Assessment Heuristic Based on Orthogonal Matching Pursuit." Forthcoming at Decision Analysis.
2. Montiel, Luis V. and J. Eric Bickel. 2019. “Exploring the Accuracy of Joint-Distribution Approximations Given Partial Information.” Forthcoming at The Engineering Economist. doi: 10.1080/0013791X.2018.1512692.
3. Hadlock, Christopher and J. Eric Bickel. 2019. "The Generalized J Quantile-Parameterized Distribution System." Decision Analysis 16(1) 67-85. doi: 10.1287/deca.2018.0376.
4. Kullawan, K., R. B. Bratvold, J. E. Bickel. 2018. “Sequential geosteering decisions for optimization of real-time well placement.” Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 165 90-104. doi: 10.1016/j.petrol.2018.01.068.
5. Hammond, Robert K. and J. Eric Bickel. 2017. “Discretization Precision and Assessment Error.” Decision Analysis 14(1) 35-64. doi: 10.1287/deca.2016.0342.