Fariba Mamaghani, PhD

Dr. Fariba Mamaghani is an Assistant Professor of Management Science at the A.B. Freeman School of Business at Tulane University and a member of the Tulane Energy Institute Advisory Board. Her research examines how data centers and the rapid growth of AI are reshaping electricity demand and prices, from microgrid capacity planning to how utilities should invest in new generation and storage to serve this unprecedented load. Her work has been published in Operations Research, where she models the utility death spiral driven by solar adoption and shows how electricity should be priced to keep utilities solvent and affordable for all consumers, and several of her recent papers are under review at top journals in operations and management science. She works closely with leading energy companies, using their data and operational questions to ground her research, and translates her findings into managerial insights on pricing, investment, and contract design that utilities, retailers, and regulators can act on. Her approach combines optimization, game theory, and machine learning/AI to answer questions that matter to firms making real investment and pricing decisions. She has presented her work at London Business School, Harvard, UC Irvine, and other universities, as well as at academic and industry conferences. Her research has been featured in several news media and podcasts. She was elected Cluster Chair of the INFORMS ENRE Environment and Sustainability Cluster and serves as Vice President of Outreach and Awards for the POMS College of Sustainability. She developed and teaches Business Statistics to MBA, Professional MBA, and Master of Management in Energy students.