Yigal Arens is currently Research Professor Emeritus of Industrial and Systems Engineering at USC.

Until May 2024 Yigal Arens was Senior Director for Administrative Affairs at USC’s Information Sciences Institute, where he oversaw the Institute’s administrative operations, working closely with division leaders to foster a culture of excellence in operational performance. In this role, Arens ensured research leaders, staff and administrative personnel were provided the most productive and rewarding working environment possible.

Prior to this position, Arens was the director of ISI’s Intelligent Systems division. Under his 15-year leadership, the division grew to more than 100 researchers and students, spanning the full range of expertise in artificial intelligence (AI). He continues to be deeply involved in information integration, specifically dealing with medical study data.

Arens previously directed the USC Digital Government Research Center, which explored the use of information technology by governments to communicate with citizens. He was a co-founder of the Digital Government Society and continues to be involved with the society and its conference series. He was also a co-founder of Fetch Technologies, a provider of web information-gathering solutions, which has since been acquired.

Arens joined USC in 1983, ISI in 1987, and the USC Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering in 2002. Arens earned his PhD in mathematics at the University of California at Berkeley.