Karla Hoffman, PhD

George Mason University

Dr. Karla Hoffman is a professor in the Systems Engineering and Operations Research Department at George Mason University and previously served as a mathematician at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. 

Dr. Hoffman’s primary research areas are optimization and auction theory. She has served as a consultant to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission on auction design, software development and testing, and to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration on the use of market-clearing mechanisms to manage congestion at airports and in the airspace.

Her research includes sensor placement on battlefields, spectrum assignment and packing for both the military and commercial telecommunications activities, and the scheduling and routing of buses, cars, airplanes, and ships for a variety of industrial clients. Her recent work for the FCC resulted in the prestigious 2018 Edelman Award for her team’s work on the billion-dollar Incentive Auction.

Dr. Hoffman is a Fellow and Past-President of INFORMS, past-chair of her department, and serves on the Administrative Council of the  International Federation of Operational Research Societies (IFORS). She received her BS in mathematics from Rutgers University, and an MBA and DSc in operations research from George Washington University.