INFORMS Open Forum

INFORMS Undergraduate OR Prize Competition Finalists

  • 1.  INFORMS Undergraduate OR Prize Competition Finalists

    Posted 09-12-2017 21:04

    Dear INFORMS Members,

    We are pleased to announce the finalists of 2017 INFORMS Undergraduate OR Paper Competition. The finalists (in alphabetical order of papers' first authors) are:

    1 - Author: Stephanie Allen

    Paper Title: "A Two-Stage Vehicle Routing Algorithm Applied to Disaster Relief Logistics after the 2015 Nepal Earthquake"

    Institution: The State University of New York (SUNY) at Geneseo (USA)

    Department: Mathematics

    Faculty Advisor: Dr. Caroline Haddad

    2- Authors: Jason Bermudez, Kevin Desprez, Alexander Kehres, Chungjae Lee, Leah Patterson, Suphaphat Petlerkwong, Yuntong Zhu.

    Paper Title: "Contact Tracing Protocol"

    Institution: Georgia Institute of Technology (USA)

    Department: Industrial and Systems Engineering

    Faculty Advisors: Drs. Brian Gurbaxani (from Centers for Disease Control) & Pinar Keskinocak (from Georgia Institute of Technology)

    3 - Author: Yue Hu

    Paper Title: "Fluid Optimal Control of Polling Systems with Large Switchover Times",

    Institution: Northwestern University (USA)

    Department: Industrial Engineering & Management Sciences

    Faculty Advisors: Drs. Jing Dong & Ohad Perry

    4 - Author: Maria Patino

    Paper Title: "Optimization Strategies to Support Analyses and Decisions to Increase the Coverage of Cervical Cancer Screening Tests in Rural Areas of Cundinamarca, Colombia"

    Institution: Universidad de los Andes (Colombia)

    Department: Industrial Engineering

    Faculty Advisors: Drs. Camilo Gomez & Ivan Mura

    5 - Author: Siddharth Reddy

    Paper Title: "Unbounded Human Learning: Optimal Scheduling for Spaced Repetition"

    Institution: Cornell University (USA)

    Department: Computer Science

    Faculty Advisor: Dr. Siddhartha Banerjee

    6 - Author: Agathe Soret

    Paper Title: "A Generalized Markov Chain Model to Capture Dynamic Preferences and Choice Overload"

    Institution: Ecole Polytechnique (France)

    Department: Applied Mathematics

    Faculty Advisor: Dr. Vineet Goyal (from Columbia University)

    The finalists reflect the strength of the projects in applied or theoretical domains from the forefront of domestic and foreign undergraduate institutions and students. They also represent a selective cohort of tomorrow's generation of operations research theorists and practitioners. The excellent work by the finalists will be showcased in two designated sessions on Sunday, October 22 at the INFORMS Annual Meeting (SB 40, 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM, and SD 40, 4:30 PM – 6:00 PM).

    Winner, runner-up and honorable mentions of the competition will be announced at the Awards Ceremony on October 22 at the INFORMS Annual Meeting. Please join us congratulating all finalists of the competition during the annual meeting. Regardless of the result of competition, all entrants should feel proud of their work. The committee takes this opportunity to thank the authors of all submissions and their faculty advisors for their innovative and outstanding work.

    Summary of the submission pool: There were 27 paper submissions to the competition from 7 different countries. United States and Turkey led the number of submissions with 10 papers from each country. Other submissions were from Canada, Colombia, France, India, Spain and Singapore.

    In addition to industrial engineering, operations research and management science disciplines, the competition also received submissions from undergraduate students that are enrolled in math/applied math and computer science departments. Submitted papers were rich in variety of methods from mixed-integer nonlinear programming to partially observed Markov decision processes. They also presented insights derived on a diverse set of subject areas from disaster relief and humanitarian logistics to marketing.

    I would like to thank my fellow committee members for their devotion of time and efforts to the evaluation of the papers. This year's committee consisted of myself, Dr. Allison Chang from MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Dr. Ozlem Ergun from Northeastern University, Dr. Jennifer Pazour from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Dr. Matthew Bailey from Bucknell University.

    Best Wishes,



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    Murat Kurt, 2017 INFORMS Undergraduate OR Prize Committee Chair
    Economic and Data Sciences
    Merck Research Labs
    North Wales, PA, USA
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