INFORMS Open Forum

Fellow OR and Analytics Colleagues,

Have you done research that can be applied to the military and national security communities?  The Military and Security Society (MAS) will have a sponsored cluster of MAS-related presentations during the 2021 INFORMS Annual Meeting and I'd like to encourage you now to start thinking about contributing.

The 2021 INFORMS Annual Meeting will take place October 24-27, 2021, and is planned to be an in-person event taking place in Anaheim, California.  For more details, see the website at Home - 2021 INFORMS Annual Meeting

As you think about contributing, here are a few things to consider:

(1) MAS is looking for volunteers to serve as Session Chairs.  If you're interested in serving as an MAS Session Chair, please contact me at Shaun.Doheney@outlook.com by March 11, 2021.  A session requires the organization of 4-5 research talks, preferably related via some commonality among the modeling techniques, solution methodologies, or applications.  Session chairs will be inviting speakers by May 1, 2021, and speakers will have until May 15th to upload the relevant information about their respective presentations.

(2) Are you interested in presenting your work but not sure about serving as a session chair?  You can post an announcement to other INFORMS and MAS members via INFORMS Connect, looking for colleagues working on related problems.  In doing so, you might not just form a session and you might also find new collaborators for future work!  

(3) Are you thinking about submitting a contributed talk instead of a sponsored talk (i.e., within an organized MAS session) because "it's easier".  Contributed Sessions are awesome and you can definitely do that, but it's not any easier and here are a few things to consider:  
     (a) MAS will try to find and bring any contributed, MAS-related talks into sessions of similarly contributed talks within the MAS cluster, but there's no guarantee we can get them.  Your talk might end up in a general INFORMS session comprised of various, unrelated talks, making it harder to draw a good-sized audience of similarly focused researchers with whom to share your contributions.
     (b) By presenting within an MAS sponsored session, you will share your research with colleagues who are more likely interested in all of the talks in your session.  Thus, you're less likely to have "session hoppers" walking in-and-out of the room during the middle of a presentation.
     (c) MAS members want to hear about your research, and being a part of a MAS-sponsored session will ensure we do!

(4) Are you convinced that your research can be applied to the military and national security community and you'd like to share your work in an MAS-sponsored session?  If so, great!  We look forward to hearing about your contributions.  Oh, and please refer to (1) and (2) above... and consider volunteering to chair a session this year.

We look forward to seeing you all at the INFORMS Annual Meeting, and especially in the MAS-sponsored sessions!  Please don't hesitate to reach out to me directly (Shaun.Doheney@outlook.com) to learn more about MAS and our MAS-sponsored sessions at the Annual Meeting.



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Shaun Doheney
INFORMS MAS VP
shaun.doheney@outlook.com
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