June 1998 INFORMS News: INFORMS Honors The INFORMS Spring 1998 Meeting in Montreal was a learning experience, but also a time to acknowledge those who have excelled in the field of OR/MS. Following is a list of the award recipients and citations from INFORMS and its Subdivisions. PHILIP McCORD MORSE LECTURESHIP AWARD This year's recipient of the Philip McCord Morse Lectureship Award was Richard C. Larson, director of the Center for Advanced Educational Services. The award honors career work in operations research. Larson, also a professor in the department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has done extensive work in the OR field including: queuing, logistics, urban service systems, manpower planning models and location theory. In recent years, he has served as president of ORSA and co-director of the MIT Operations Research Center until 1995. The award was presented by committee chairman Ralph Keeney. INFORMS PRIZE FOR THE TEACHING OF OR/MS PRACTICE The 1998 INFORMS Prize for the Teaching of OR/MS Practice was awarded to Ronald A. Howard for his leadership in the field of OR/MS education and practice for more than 30 years. Early in his career, Howard coined the term "decision analysis" to mean "applied decision theory," reflecting his passion to apply basic analytic principles to real human problems. The impact of his teaching is evident in the work of his students. Howard has supervised more than 60 doctoral dissertations. A majority of these students have pursued careers as practicing decision analysts, either building decision analysis groups within existing corporations, founding or joining decision analysis consulting firms, or conducting significant ongoing practice from within academia. As a professor in the Department of Engineering Economic Systems and Operations Research at Stanford University, Howard developed ­ and still teaches ­ the core of the decision analysis curriculum. His introductory classes regularly attract more than 150 undergraduates and graduates, while his seminars attract one or two dozen graduate students in law, business, medicine and engineering. He also teaches decision analysis courses for professional clients and staff of Strategic Decisions Group, a firm he co-founded in 1981. Howard designed his curriculum to guide students in devising and discussing norms of decision-making. He elicits and proposes desiderata for decision-making methodologies and engages the students in evaluating their desirability. He then professes his current best thinking about the norms. Throughout, he challenges the students to examine their approaches to decision-making in both their professional and personal life. For some, this proves to be a life-changing experience. Howard's classes combine lecture, experiential learning, Socratic dialog and directed inquiry. He places great importance on clarity of thought and communication, emphasizing that decision analysis is a high-quality conversation about a decision, whose goal is to provide the decision-maker with clarity of action. The award was presented by Thom J. Hodgson, chair of the INFORMS Prize for the Teaching of OR/MS Practice Committee. GEORGE NICHOLSON PRIZE Each year, the George E. Nicholson Prize is held to honor outstanding papers in the field of operations research and management science written by a student. As many as six awards (first-and second-place awards and up to four awards for honorable mention) may be given upon recommendation of the selection committee. This year's honorees: First Prize: Tito Homem-de-Mello, "Estimation of derivatives of nonsmooth performance measures in regenerative systems." Second Prize: Lisa Fleischer, "Separating maximally violated comb inequalities in planar graphs." Honorable Mention: Pinar Keskinocak, "Algorithms for reliable lead time quotation." Finalists: (certificates awarded) • Sarah Stock-Patterson, "The traffic flow management rerouting problem in air traffic control." • Ana Muriel, "Supply chain management: Integrating inventory and transportation." Table of Contents OR/MS Today Home Page OR/MS Today copyright © 1998 by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences. All rights reserved. Lionheart Publishing, Inc. 506 Roswell Street, Suite 220, Marietta, GA 30060, USA Phone: 770-431-0867 | Fax: 770-432-6969 E-mail: lpi@lionhrtpub.com URL: http://www.lionhrtpub.com Web Site © Copyright 1998 by Lionheart Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.