Christos Alexopoulos, professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) has been recently recognized with two significant awards: the 2020 INFORMS Simulation Society (I-SIM) Distinguished Service Award and the 2020 James R. Wilson WSC Board of Directors Award, given by the Winter Simulation Conference (WSC).

The I-SIM Distinguished Service Award is given to “to recognize individuals who have provided long-standing, exceptional service to the simulation community. …This award is for sustained service to the simulation community over at least 15 to 20 years or longer, and acquitted with distinction.” The WSC Board of Directors Award is given to an individual who has given longstanding exceptional service to the WSC.

Alexopoulos is the first person to receive both accords in a single year. He and ISyE Professor Dave Goldsman were given the 2007 I-SIM Outstanding Simulation Publication Award for their paper “To Batch Or Not To Batch?” which was published in 2004 by ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation.

“Winning both awards in the same year is unprecedented. Besides being highly regarded as a researcher, the awards speak to the fact that Christos has been a driving force in the simulation community over his entire career in terms of service; and, in particular, he’s a go-to guy who has played a major role in establishing the Winter Simulation Conference as the premier event in the field,” said Goldsman.

The Board of Directors of the WSC noted, “Christos has participated in the WSC since 1988 in levels of responsibility ranging from session chair to chair of the Board of Directors. During the period of 2008-16, he served on the WSC Board as co-representative of the INFORMS Simulation Society; he held the positions of secretary (2010), vice-chair (2011), chair (2012), and liaison to the WSC (2013). During Christos’ service as chair of the board, WSC met outside the U.S. for the first time; 60% of the attendees to that conference were based outside the U.S.”

Alexopoulos said, “I feel very honored and deeply humbled as a recipient of these awards. WSC is considered the premier conference for the widespread simulation community, and the joint ventures of I-SIM and WSC have been a core service activity for me from the onset of my academic career. I am very proud of my editorial service to the simulation community and my role on the WSC Board of Directors during the design and ratification of the Joint Sponsorship Agreement between the four financial sponsors of WSC, namely INFORMS, ACM, IIE, and the Society for Modeling and Simulation International (SCS).

"This agreement has been an essential tool for the long-term financial viability of WSC and proved its value during the recent pandemic with a very successful virtual conference in December 2020," he added.