James Diamond

Dr. James "Jim" Diamond is an adjunct faculty member who teaches airline operations and management, bringing more than 30 years of experience in aviation operations research, analytics, and strategic decision-making to the classroom. He is the former Managing Director of Operations Research at American Airlines, where he founded and led a 60-person department that delivered more than $10 million in annual value through advanced analytics applied across network planning, crew resources, airport operations, and maintenance.

Dr. Diamond holds a Ph.D. in Systems Engineering from Purdue University, with a concentration in Environmental and Public Systems Analysis, as well as master's and bachelor's degrees from Purdue and Cornell University, respectively. Earlier in his career, he served as an assistant professor at Texas A&M University and as a graduate instructor at Purdue, teaching statistics, quantitative analysis, and systems engineering.

A co-inventor on eight patents for airline decision support tools, Dr. Diamond has been a keynote speaker at the INFORMS Business Analytics Conference and an invited guest lecturer at MIT, Stanford, UC Berkeley, and numerous other universities.

In the classroom, Dr. Diamond emphasizes practical application and critical thinking, using airline simulations and real-world case studies to help students develop the strategic decision-making skills needed for success in the air transportation industry.