Sometimes I receive a message or thank you note that truly makes my day. You know the ones—they’re the ones that make you realize that you made a difference to somebody. When I receive one of these notes, I get a little teary eyed, print it, and save it in a box in my office. One day when I retire, I’m going to take the box of meaningful notes and leave the rest behind ..read more

The two point conversion has become more popular in National Football League (NFL) games, and it has become a popular topic of conversation in the NFL playoffs leading up to the Super Bowl. I once wrote a blog post that uses dynamic programming to identify when to go for 2 based on the score differential and the number of possessions remaining in the game. The analysis also shows what difference the choice makes, noting that most of the time the win probability does not make a huge difference in the outcome of the game, affecting the win probability by less than one-percent in most cases. In t ..read more

It was an honor to serve as the President of INFORMS in 2023. During my term, I wrote a president’s column in ORMS Today entitled “Presidential Punk Rock OR.” You can read all of my columns here. In my last president’s column, I retrospectively summarized my term by the numbers. I’ve reprinted my final column below: As I write my last “Presidential Punk Rock O.R.” column, I am officially the INFORMS past-president. Now that my term has ended, I have been reflecting on my time as the 2023 INFORMS president, and will summarize my year by the numbers. In 2023, I … Chaired 4 Board of D ..read more

It’s a new year, and I’m reflecting on 2023 and looking forward to 2024. New Years resolutions. As usual, I have set New Year’s resolutions for the coming year. I will continue to focus on self-care and wellness in the coming year. My goals for the year are to continue four habits that I set this past year as well as three new resolutions. 2023 self-assessment. You can review my seven resolutions for 2023 here. In my self-assessment, I did well with physical therapy, public outreach, meditation, and eating leafy green vegetables. I started practicing the piano in the spring and summer and have ..read more

“Operations research – what is it?” is the title of a paper by Philip McCord Morse published in the Journal of Applied Physics in 1952. The paper is a transcript of a lecture Morse gave at the conference on Applications of Operations Research in Industry at Case Institute of Technology, Cleveland, Ohio, November 8-10, 1951. Case Institute of Technology later offered the first degree program in operations research. Spoiler: Morse declines to define operations research, arguing that “chemistry and physics must have been difficult to define in the early days.” He notes that many definitions of op ..read more

The 23rd Conference of the International Federation of Operational Research Societies (IFORS) was held in Santiago, Chile on July 10-14, 2023. I attended and enjoyed the conference talks and conversations. I appreciate the efforts of the organizing and program committees, especially co-chairs Jorge Vera and Rafael Epstein as well as program chair Alice Smith. Here are a few highlights of the conference. In the opening plenary entitled “From Academia to Politics: A Vision for Addressing Urban Transport Sustainability Based on Lessons from Santiago’s Transport System,” Juan Carlos Muñoz addresse ..read more

The documentary series “Muscles & Mayhem: An Unauthorized Story of American Gladiators,” which was released by Netflix this month, has reminded me of the television reality show American Gladiators that debuted in 1989. The television show featured amateur athletes who participated in various strength and agility challenges in competition against each other and the show’s so-called “gladiators.” The gladiators used stage names on the show such as Nitro, Laser, Lace, Blaze, Ice, and Turbo. What is the connection to operations research? There isn’t one, at least not exactly. Bear with me. I ..read more

George Dantzig invented the simplex algorithm and contributed to linear programming. He introduced the world to the power of optimization, which has led to massive increases in productivity and drives the global economy (Read more in Prof. John Birge’s article here). The movie “Good Will Hunting” has a scene that is inspired by the life of George Dantzig. In the movie, Matt Damon plays an MIT janitor who anonymously solves a difficult math problem that a math professor posted on a hallway blackboard. In real life, George Dantzig once arrived to Jerzy Neyman’s class late while he was a graduate ..read more

A gaggle of geese. A murder of crows. A parliament of owls. A flamboyance of flamingos. A pride of lions. What do you call a group of operations researchers? I asked this question to the OR community on the INFORMS Open Forum. Here are some of the answers I received: A tableau of optimizers (from Ralph Asher) A distribution of problem solvers (from Anthony Bonifonte) A model of operations researchers (David Tullet) A process of industrial engineers A sequence of analysts (from Kara Tucker) A quantity of quants (from Paul Rubin) A queue of operations researchers (from Greg Godfrey) A simplex o ..read more

In my last lab meeting with the five PhD students in my lab, we discussed how to collaborate on research. While I have a lab compact conveying my expectations for myself and students who work under my supervision, the lab compact focuses more on individual expectations rather than collaboration. I decided to give collaboration more attention. As a group, we collaboratively edited a document in real-time that outlines techniques that various lab members have found to be effective in their collaborations. Most of their collaborations are with me, their advisor, and sometimes a co-advisor. Severa ..read more