Honors and Awards 2006-2007

We are delighted to report on a large number of honors and awards received by the MIT operations research community

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Cindy Barnhart was elected as the next President-Elect of INFORMS.                         

Michael Braun received the Best Student Paper award from the INFORMS Decision Analysis Society.

Rob Freund received the Jamieson Prize for Excellence in Teaching, May 2007.  The Jamieson Prize is awarded for innovative contributions to teaching.

David Gamarnik received an IBM Faculty Award, June 2006.

Stanley Gershwin’s paper (coauthored with Yun Kang) "Information inaccuracy in inventory systems: stock loss and stockout," was awarded the Best Paper of the Year in IIE Transactions on Design & Manufacturing.

Michel Goemans received the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship for July 2007 to June 2008.

John Hauser was elected as an INFORMS Fellows.  "The Fellow Award recognizes members who have made significant contributions to the advancement of operations research and the management sciences, such contributions including service to the professional field and to INFORMS."

Richard Larson received an IBM Research Award, September 2006.

Tom Magnanti’s paper "Strong Formulations for Network Design Problems with Connectivity Requirements" (with S. Raghavan) received the Glover-Klingman Prize for the best paper published in the journal Networks during 2005.

Amedeo Odoni  received an Honorary Ph.D. (honoris causa) in Management Science, from the Athens University of Economics and Business, October 16, 2006.  In addition, he received the Maseeh Excellence in Teaching Award, MIT Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, May 2007.  Last, but not least, Amedeo was the recipient of the Capers (1976) and Marion McDonald Award for Excellence in Mentoring and Advising, MIT School of Engineering, May 2007.

Jim Orlin was selected to be a MacVicar Fellow in March 2007.   “Appointment as a Fellow recognizes faculty who have made exemplary and sustained contributions to the teaching and education of undergraduates at MIT.”   In addition, Jim was elected as an INFORMS Fellow in November 2006.  "The Fellow Award recognizes members who have made significant contributions to the advancement of operations research and the management sciences, such contributions including service to the professional field and to INFORMS."

Andreas Schulz received an Honorable Mention for the INFORMS Transportation Science & Logistics Society Best Paper Award; for his paper “Selfish Routing in Capacitated Networks,” (coauthored with J.R. Correa and N.E. Stier Moses), Mathematics of Operations Research 29, 2004, 961-976.

David Simchi-Levi also was elected as an INFORMS Fellow.  "The Fellow Award recognizes members who have made significant contributions to the advancement of operations research and the management sciences, such contributions including service to the professional field and to INFORMS."

John Tsitsiklis was elected to the National Academy of Engineering for ``his contributions to the theory and application of optimization in dynamic and distributed systems.''  In addition, John was appointed the Clarence J Lebel Professor of Electrical Engineering chair.
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Students

Timothy Chan was awarded the Hugh Hampton Young Memorial Fund Fellowship.

Juliane Dunkel received the Diploma Thesis Award of the German Association of Operations Research, 2006.

Hamed Mamani received the INFORMS Pierskalla best paper award, November 2006.  In addition, Hamed received honorable mention in the INFORMS Bonder Scholarship.

Michael Metzger was awarded the Goodwin Medal for Outstanding TA of the year for MIT.  Its purpose is to recognize a "conspicuously effective" young teacher who is also a graduate student.

Alex Rikun received an honorable mention from NSF, March 2007.

Stephen Shum received an honorable mention in the Nicholson Student Paper Competition for “Coordinating Efforts of Multiple Retailers in a Decentralized Supply Chain,” November 2006.

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Alexandre Belloni received second place in the Nicholson Student Paper Competition for his paper "On the Computational Complexity of MCMC-based Estimators in Large Samples." 

Vijay Chandru received the INFORMS President’s Award.  The purpose of this award is to recognize, and thereby encourage, important contributions to the welfare of society by members of our profession at the local, national, or global level.

Marshall Fisher was awarded the Philip McCord Morse Lectureship Award in honor of Philip McCord Morse in recognition of his pioneer contribution to the field of operations research and the management sciences.

Garrett J. van Ryzin was the recipient of the Distinguished Service Award for his meritorious service towards advancing the goals and objectives of the MSOM Society of INFORMS.