At this year’s annual Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) conference, multiple Georgia Tech Industrial and Systems Engineering faculty and students were awarded and recognized for their contributions to the field. 

Faculty Awards

Pinar Keskinocak, William W. George Chair and Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) received both the prestigious INFORMS President’s Award and the George E. Kimball Medal. 

The INFORMS President's Award honors her exceptional contributions to the welfare of society and distinguished service to the organization and the broader profession.

The George E. Kimball Medal represents long, tireless and visionary contributions with distinguished service to society and the INFORMS community.  

The Frederick W. Lanchester Prize, awarded for the best recent contribution to operations research and management sciences published in English in the past five years, was presented to Professor Arkadi Nemirovski.

For his work on "Statistical Inference via Convex Optimization", Nemirovski provides a modern perspective on the connection between convext optimization and high-dimensional statistics, commonly used in machine learning.

In the Transportation Science and Logistics Section, the Best Paper Award went to Alexander M. Stroh, Alan L. Erera, and Alejandro Toriello for their exceptional research in transportation science.

• Alexander M. Stroh, Former Professor in Industrial and Systems Engineering
• Alan L. Erera, Associate Chair for Research Manhattan Associates, Dabbiere Chair and Professor
• Alejandro Toriello, UPS Professor of Logistics

Alejandro Toriello also received the Stella Dafermos Achievement Award in Transportation Science, awarded by the INFORMS Transportation Science and Logistics Society (TSL) to a mid-career scholar with significant scientific contributions to transportation science and logistics. Toriello’s work and service to TSL and diversity initiatives made him a standout choice for this honor.

The Robert Herman Lifetime Achievement Award, which is awarded every two years by TSL, was presented to Affliate Professor Martin Savelsbergh, in recognition of his sustained and impactful contributions to the field of transportation science through his research, teaching, and mentorship of young professionals.

The Minority Issues Forum (MIF) also awarded several honors to support the work and visibility of underrepresented scholars. Gian-Gabriel P. Garcia, Lauren N. Steimle, Wesley J. Marrero, and Jeremy B. Sussman won the MIF Paper Competition, which was established in 2016 to spotlight recent contributions by younger scholars. 

• Gian-Gabriel P. Garcia, Harold E. Smalley Early Career Professor
• Lauren N. Steimle, Harold R. and Mary Anne Nash Early Career Professor and Assistant Professor

Student Awards

This year’s winner of the Seth Bonder Scholarship for Applied Operations Research in Military and Security Applications, for the Society Student Paper Competition, is J. Hayden Boone, a Ph.D student advised by Mathieu Dahan. His work was recognized for outstanding student research in areas related to the MAS mission. 

Che-Yi Liao, a Ph.D. student focused on Machine Learning, received the Seth Bonder Scholarship for Applied Operations Research in Health Services. This award scholarship provides funding from the Seth Bonder Scholarship Endowment, and an additional grant funded by the Foundation. Liao is advised by ISyE faculty Gain-Gabriel Garcia and Kamran Paynabar. 

Himadri Pandey, a Ph.D. student advised by Garcia, received first place in the Minority Issues Forum (MIF) Student Poster Competition, which has supported underrepresented minority graduate students since its founding in 2012.

Michael Biehler was awarded the Quality, Statistics & Reliability (QSR) Section’s Best Refereed Paper Award, which recognizes outstanding work among papers presented in INFORMS QSR sessions.

Zihan Zhang, PhD student received the Judith Liebman Award, which recognizes outstanding student volunteers who have been “moving spirits” in their universities, and student chapters. 

Student Organization Awards

The INFORMS Georgia Tech Student Chapter, majority led by ISyE students, received the Summa Cum Laude distinction. This award recognizes their contribution and efforts to student engagement and advancement on campus. 

2023-2024 Leadership

• President: Zihan Zhang

• Vice President: Anjolaoluwa Popoola

• Treasurer: Lingchao Mao

• Secretary: Zheng Dong

• Alias Members: Xinyu Liu, Sourabh Choudhary

2024-2025 Leadership

• President: Lingchao Mao

• Vice President: Abel Sapirstein

• Secretary: Alina Gorbunova

• Treasurer: Jacob Aguirre

• Council Members: Jay Mulay, Xinchao Liu

Finalists

Ph.D. student Jingye Xu, was a finalist for the George E. Nicholson Student Paper Competition for their work outstanding student paper in the field of operations research and management sciences. 

Mehrdad Ghadiri, was a finalist for the George B. Dantzig Dissertation Award, best known for highlighting innovative and relevant research in the field. The award aims to encourage academic research that combines theory and practice, and stimulates greater interaction between doctoral students and the world of practice.