We are excited to invite submissions to the NeurIPS 2026 Second Workshop on MLxOR: Mathematical Foundations and Operational Integration of Machine Learning for Uncertainty-Aware Decision-Making, organized with support from the INFORMS Applied Probability Society. The workshop will be held in person on December 12 or 13 in Atlanta, GA, USA, as part of the NeurIPS 2026 conference.
Launched in 2025, the inaugural MLxOR workshop explored the growing synergy between Machine Learning (ML) and Operations Research (OR) and attracted a large number of high-quality submissions and attendees, fostering productive interactions in these interdisciplinary communities. Building on this momentum, MLxOR 2026 will continue to present recent developments, discuss challenges, and publicize emerging research opportunities in data-centric decision-making that leverage both the rapid advancement of ML and the principled methodological rigor of OR. In addition, MLxOR 2026 will emphasize a more focused and timely theme of “decision-making with GenAI+OR”.
We welcome submissions that develop new methodologies, provide theoretical insights, or present real-world applications at the intersection of ML and OR. This year’s workshop will feature a special emphasis on the integration of Generative AI into decision sciences. Relevant topics include, but are not limited to:
We encourage submissions from researchers across ML, OR, applied probability, and statistics, as well as practitioners from industry and public sector organizations. Any works broadly relevant to decision-making via GenAI+OR, in subareas such as reinforcement learning, sequential and adaptive decision-making, stochastic control and optimization, distributional robustness, causal inference, foundation models, simulation and digital twins, and applications in healthcare, logistics, manufacturing, transportation, finance, energy systems, revenue management and other operational domains are all welcome.
In addition to the presentation of accepted papers, the workshop will feature keynote talks, panel discussions, and plenty of opportunities to interact among participants.
Like last year, we also plan to provide financial support for selected students and junior researchers who contribute to the workshop. More details on the application procedure will be available soon.
Submission Guildlines
All accepted papers will be presented in one of the poster sessions at the workshop. In addition, several selected papers will be chosen for best paper awards and oral presentations.
Important Dates
If you have any questions or would like additional information, please feel free to reach out to us via: neurips.mlxor.workshop@gmail.com.
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We are also excited to continue and expand the workshop-to-journal pathway introduced last year. This year, we are coordinating with Stochastic Systems, Mathematics of Operations Research, and Operations Research. Authors may indicate at most one journal for which they would like their paper to be considered when submitting, and invitation decisions will be made independently by the respective journal editors.
For Stochastic Systems, designated Associate Editors will determine which papers are invited to proceed through the pathway. Invited papers will undergo the journal’s standard review process, with an effort to retain the same reviewers from the workshop whenever appropriate.
For Mathematics of Operations Research, designated Area Editors will determine which papers are invited. Invited authors will submit the workshop reviews and explain how they have addressed the feedback received during the workshop review. The papers will then proceed directly to external review under the journal’s standard review process, with an effort to retain at least one workshop reviewer when appropriate.
For Operations Research, designated Area Editors will determine which papers are invited. Invited papers will be required to address the workshop feedback and will then proceed directly to external review under the journal’s standard review process, with reviewers selected by the journal.
The tentative schedule is shown below and will be updated soon.
| Time | Event |
|---|---|
| 8:30 – 9:00 | Keynote Talk 1 |
| 9:00 – 10:00 | Poster Session 1 |
| 10:00 – 10:30 | Coffee Break |
| 10:30 – 11:15 | Panel Discussion 1 |
| 11:15 – 11:55 | Spotlight Presentations |
| 11:55 – 12:45 | Lunch |
| 12:45 – 13:45 | Poster Session 2 |
| 13:45 – 14:15 | Keynote Talk 2 |
| 14:15 – 14:45 | Coffee Break |
| 14:45 – 15:45 | Poster Session 3 |
| 15:45 – 16:15 | Keynote Talk 3 |
| 16:15 – 17:00 | Panel Discussion 2 |
The program and times are tentative and subject to change. Speakers will be announced.
The following speakers and panelists are confirmed so far.
Yeganeh Alimohammadi (USC), Abdullah Alomar (MIT), Alessandro Arlotto (Duke), Jackie Baek (NYU), Mohsen Bayati (Stanford), Sem Borst (Eindhoven Univ. of Technology), Haoyang Cao (Johns Hopkins), Prakash Chakraborty (Penn State), Xinyun Chen (CUHK-Shenzhen), Yi Chen (HKUST), Yilun Chen (CUHK-Shenzhen), Yudong Chen (Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison), Zaiwei Chen (Purdue), Andrew Daw (USC), Souvik Dhara (Georgia Tech), Ton Dieker (Columbia), Vassilis Digalakis (Boston Univ.), Eugene A. Feinberg (Stony Brook Univ.), Yiding Feng (HKUST), Yuri Fonseca (UCL), Michael Fu (Maryland), Rui Gao (Univ. of Texas at Austin), Xuefeng Gao (CUHK), Julia Gaudio (Northwestern), Soumyadip Ghosh (IBM Research), Swati Gupta (MIT), Varun Gupta (Univ. of Utah), Yinbin Han (Stanford), X.Y. Han (Univ. of Chicago Booth School of Business), David Holtz (Columbia), Harsha Honnappa (Purdue), Chamsi Hssaine (USC), Anran Hu (Columbia), Yuchen Hu (Columbia), Yilie Huang (HK PolyU), Dongyan Lucy Huo (HKUST), Daniela Hurtado-Lange (Northwestern), Yassir Jedra (Imperial College London), Yanwei Jia (CUHK), Jiashuo Jiang (HKUST), Ramesh Johari (Stanford), Sandeep Juneja (Ashoka Univ.), Yash Kanoria (Columbia), Sajad Khodadadian (Virginia Tech), Daniel Kuhn (EPFL), Lihua Lei (Stanford), Marc Lelarge (Inria), Andrew A. Li (CMU), Hannah Li (Columbia), Michael Lingzhi Li (Harvard), Mo Liu (UC Berkeley), Sheng Liu (Univ. of Toronto), Weiliang Liu (CUHK), Yueyang Liu (Stanford), Jiaqi Lu (CUHK-Shenzhen), Jinchi Lv (USC), Thodoris Lykouris (MIT), Yu Ma (Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison), Xiaojie Mao (Tsinghua), Gal Mendelson (NC State), Seungki Min (SNU), Wenlong Mou (Univ. of Toronto), Viet Anh Nguyen (CUHK), Raghu Pasupathy (Purdue), Tianyi Peng (Columbia), Chara Podimata (MIT), Meng Qi (Cornell), Pengyu Qian (Boston Univ.), Hanzhang Qin (NUS), Chao Qin (Stanford), Luc Rey-Bellet (UMass Amherst), Chang-Han Rhee (Northwestern), Ilya Ryzhov (Univ. of Maryland), Roshni Sahoo (Stanford), Vahid Sarhangian (Univ. of Toronto), Neha Sharma (UPenn), Cong Shi (Univ. of Miami), Pengyi Shi (Purdue), Nian Si (HKUST), David Simchi-Levi (MIT), Sean Sinclair (Northwestern), Dogyoon Song (UC Davis), Mansi Sood (MIT), Wenpin Tang (Columbia), Bruno Tuffin (Inria), Kaizheng Wang (Columbia), Tianyu Wang (Columbia), Weina Wang (CMU), Yehua Wei (Duke), Wentao Weng (MIT), Ruoyu Wu (Iowa State Univ.), Liyan Xie (Univ. of Minnesota), Yao Xie (Georgia Tech), Linwei Xin (Cornell), Yunbei Xu (NUS), Chen Yan (Univ. of Michigan), Zixian Yang (Univ. of Michigan), David D. Yao (Columbia), Lei Ying (Univ. of Michigan), Wei You (HKUST), Christina Yu (Cornell), Assaf Zeevi (Columbia), Emily Zhang (MIT), Jingwei Zhang (Cornell), Wenxin Zhang (Columbia), Xiaowei Zhang (HKUST), Jinglong Zhao (Boston Univ.), Angela Zhou (USC), Xunyu Zhou (Columbia), Ruihao Zhu (Cornell), Martin Zubeldia (Univ. of Minnesota), Bert Zwart (CWI and Eindhoven Univ. of Technology)