INFORMS Open Forum

Welcome 2022-2023 Subdivisions Council!

  • 1.  Welcome 2022-2023 Subdivisions Council!

    Posted 10-05-2021 15:30
    Dear Community Officers,

    The results are in!  Please help me welcome the newly elected members of the 2022-2023 Subdivisions Council!  

    The Subdivisions Council was established to oversee the subdivisions of INFORMS and to facilitate communication between the subdivisions and the Board. 

    VP for Chapters/Fora

    Kathryn Walter is the outgoing chapter representative on the INFORMS Subdivisions Council where she encouraged and proposed ideas for increased support of chapters. For the past three years, she has served as the president of the Houston chapter after reviving it from a period of inactivity. Before moving to Houston, she was a trustee of WINFORMS, the Washington, DC chapter for two years. She is a Certified Analytics Professional and recently became an Analytics Capability Evaluation Coach through INFORMS. In her professional career, Kathryn is a senior operations research analyst at Avista, a utilities company based in Spokane, WA, where she optimizes power supply decisions. She previously worked with clients on supply chain optimization projects and led the supply chain analytics courses at Georgia Tech Professional Education while she was an analytics consultant at ORTEC. A former military officer, Kathryn forecasted metrics related to human resources at US Coast Guard Headquarters and coordinated search and rescue efforts using simulation technology. She holds an MS in operations research from Columbia University and a BS in operations research and computer analysis from the US Coast Guard Academy.

    Student Chapter Representative

    Balan Srinivasan is a Ph.D. student in the Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at North Carolina State University. He holds a BS in Industrial Engineering from the College of Engineering, Guindy, Anna University, and a Master's in Industrial Engineering from the National Institute of Industrial Engineering, India. He has been the President of the INFORMS NCSU chapter for 2020-21 and is currently acting as a Past President in 2021-22. In this time, he spearheaded various initiatives connecting academic and industry stalwarts in five broader categories, namely, academic webinars, industry workshops, career guidance programs, professional training workshops, and student tutorial sessions. During this time, the chapter emerged as an active community with strong Operations Research, Management Science, and Analytics focus. In addition, he is serving as the President of the Logistics and Supply chain division for IISE and an active staff editor for INFORMS OR/MS tomorrow, a student magazine.

    His research interests are stochastic production inventory optimization, supply chain risk management, and supply chain engineering. Before coming to NC State University, he worked in the industry for eight years in the automotive, manufacturing, healthcare, agribusiness, and consulting sectors. He authored five refereed journal papers and is a certified Six Sigma Green Belt. He received the voice of the future award and excellence award at Murugappa group and Olam international ltd.   

    Fora Representative

    Diana Ramirez-Rios is a lecturer and researcher at the Industrial and Systems Engineering Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). She holds a Ph.D. in Transportation Engineering from RPI and B.S.-M.S. in Industrial Engineering from Universidad del Norte in Barranquilla, Colombia. Her research focuses on supply chain optimization, freight transportation, and humanitarian/disaster response logistics. She has been involved with INFORMS for nearly 15 years.  She belongs to several societies, including the Minority Issues Forum (MIF), the Women in OR/MS, the Location Analysis Section, and Transportation Science and Logistics (TSL) Societies. At MIF, she currently serves as the Junior VP of the Programs Committee. She is also the recipient of several prestigious awards. In May 2021, she received the Karen and Lester Gerhardt Prize in Science and Engineering (1982) and the Thomas Archibald Bedford Prize (1964) at RPI. In 2020, she received the Helene M. Overly/ Leonard Braun Graduate Scholarship by WTS International and the Bayer Scholarship by INFORMS Analytics Society. She is a fellow of the ENO Future Leaders in Transportation, 2019 CEE-MIT Rising Stars alumni, and was part of the team of finalists for the 2017 Franz Edelman Award who developed the Off-hour Delivery Program in New York City. In 2015, I was designated as a Colciencias Scholar by the Governor of the Atlantico Department in Colombia.

    Chapter Representatives (3)


    Vinod Cheriyan has been an active board member of INFORMS Chicago Chapter for the past six years. He served as the Vice-President in 2019 and Chapter President in 2020. During this time Vinod played an instrumental role in revitalizing the Chicago Chapter. The Chapter has successfully conducted INFORMS Regional Analytics Conferences regularly, in addition to numerous local events bringing together industry, academia and student communities in the local Chicago and midwest areas. To address the problem of lack of volunteers to serve on the Chapter Committee, Vinod spearheaded the Volunteer Action Committee process that provides a pathway for interested volunteers to join the committee and eventually the board. Through this approach the Chapter was able to quickly and efficiently fill the board with a cohesive team of Committee Members. During the pandemic of 2020, Chicago Chapter was one of the few Chapters in the nation that actively pivoted to online events, conducting multiple local events in addition to holding the annual conference. Vinod was awarded the Moving Spirit Award in 2020 for outstanding service to the Chicago Chapter. 

    Vinod is a Senior Lead Data Scientist at Enova International, a Chicago-based fintech company. At Enova, Vinod works on applying optimization techniques to designing decision flows. He was one of the key architects of Enova's analytics-as-a-service platform.  Prior to Enova, he worked as a Senior Consultant at Deloitte in their Custom Development and Data Warehousing group. Vinod has a Ph.D. in Operations Research from Georgia Tech. He also has a B.Tech and M.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. 

     

    Alan Piciacchio is the President of the re-energized New Jersey Chapter. He is leading the revitalization of the chapter by networking with the former core leaders and is building a strong network with the major universities in the state. He has worked on various initiatives over the years and is eager to grow his contribution and influence in INFORMs.

    Alan is an executive at IBM and was formerly appointed to the prestigious position of Distinguished Engineer. He has a very strong patent and award portfolio, including an IBM Academy of Technology President's Award. He is an applied Data Scientist who specializes in Industrial Engineering solutions, along with Quality Engineering principles. He has held a variety of technical and technical leadership positions at IBM, including 9 years in management. Currently he is focused on implementing state-of-the-art Root Cause Analysis processes for services delivery, along with architecting and implementing a new client-facing organization within a transforming segment.

    Alan also has a strong penchant for giveback and volunteerism, as evidenced by his strong group of proteges and his long history of leading organizations, both professionally and outside of work (former President of Homeowner Association, multiple positions on Beacon Soccer Club Board, former board member in American Society of Quality). Alan obtained BS and MS Degrees in Science and Engineering from Penn State University.


    Jose Ramirez-Calderon is Associate Director and Professor of the Institute for Operations Research at Galileo University, Guatemala. Jose Ramirez-Calderon received a Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Texas A&M University. He also received an M.Sc. in Operations Research and a B.S. in Computer Sciences Engineering from Galileo University. He was a recipient of the Fulbright-LASPAU scholarship from the U.S. Embassy in 2009. Dr. Ramirez's research interests are robust discrete optimization, network optimization, and supply chain optimization. He has more than 8 years of experience in teaching at Galileo and Texas A&M Universities. He has also worked as a researcher for consulting projects in transportation optimization, supply chain analysis, and more for global companies such as Brenntag, Spartan Stores, and Victory Packaging. He served as president of the INFORMS Student Chapter at Texas A&M University, and he is the current Faculty Advisor of the INFORMS Student Chapter at Galileo University.

    Section Representatives (5)

    Eunshin Byon is an Associate Professor in the Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA.  She received her Ph.D. degree in the Industrial and Systems Engineering from the Texas A&M University, College Station, USA in 2010.  Dr. Byon's research interests include data science, quality and reliability engineering, system informatics and uncertainty quantification. Her work is supported by multiple National Science Foundation grants and industry grant. Dr. Byon's research team has received several Best Paper recognitions from the Quality, Reliability and Statistics (QSR) and Data Mining sections of INFORMS, IISE Transactions, Data Analytics & Information Systems and Energy Systems subdivisions of IISE Annual Conference & Expo (ISERC).

    Dr. Byon served the INFORMS Quality, Reliability and Statistics (QSR) section as the council member in 2014-2016, chair-elect in 2018-2019 and chair in 2019-2020. She currently serves several journals as the associate editor, including INFORMS Journal on Data Science, IISE Transactions, and IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering.

     

    John Hollywood is a senior operations researcher and Policing Market Manager at RAND. He also serves as a professor in the Pardee RAND Graduate School, where he teaches approaches to applying analytics and other systems engineering and management approaches to public policy analysis. He is an internationally-recognized expert on the use of analytics (especially predictive analytics) in policing, as well as criminal justice and homeland security technology more broadly, and is commonly interviewed on these topics. He has written opinion pieces on best practices in counterterrorism and law enforcement technology for United Press International, CNN, The Charlotte Observer, Crane's Chicago Business, Government Technology, and ORMS Today.  He has served on the Subdivisions Council for two years; previously, he was President of the re-founding of the Public Programs and Processes Section (now merged into the Public Sector Operations Research section).


    Kayse Lee Maass is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering and leads the Operations Research and Social Justice lab at Northeastern University. Dr. Maass's research focuses on the application of operations research methodology to social justice, access, and equity issues within human trafficking, mental health, housing, and supply chain contexts. Her work is supported my multiple National Science Foundation grants, centers interdisciplinary survivor-informed expertise, and has been used to inform policy and operational decisions at the local, national, and international levels.

    Dr. Maass earned a PhD in Industrial and Operations Engineering (IOE) from the University of Michigan and completed her postdoctoral studies as a Research Associate in the Department of Health Sciences Research at the Mayo Clinic. She is a recipient of multiple awards, including: Northeastern's Industrial Engineering Faculty of The Year Award, the INFORMS Judith Liebman Award, NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program Award, INFORMS Section on Location Analysis Dissertation Award-Runner Up. Dr. Maass currently serves on the INFORMS Subdivision Council, as the INFORMS Section on Location Analysis Secretary, and as an INFORMS DEI Ambassador.  She is a member of the H.E.A.L. Trafficking Research Committee, The Global Association of Human Trafficking Scholars, and the U.N. University Delta 8.7 Markets Working Group on Human Trafficking.

     

    Paul Messinger has served as Chair of the INFORMS of the Subdivision Council, on the first CAP committee, on the marketing strategy committee, as Chair of the INFORMS Service Science Section and in the INFORMS Society for Marketing Science in roles as Treasurer, Secretary-Treasurer, Newsletter Editor and on the editorial board of the journal Marketing Science.  Paul is an Associate Professor in the Department of Marketing, Business Economics, and Law at the University of Alberta School of Business.  Paul has additional committee leadership experience as the founding Director of the University of Alberta School of Retailing and Director of the Canadian Institute of Retailing and Services (2000 – 2007) and as principal investigator of the Social Science and Humanities Council of Canada's Initiative on the New Economy, Research Alliance, "Harnessing the Web Interaction Process for Canadian Competitiveness," involving researchers from seven universities and partnerships with fourteen retail businesses. 

     

    Asil Oztekin is an Associate Professor of Analytics & Operations Management and the Coordinator of the Ph.D. Concentration in Management Science within the Manning School of Business at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He is also serving as an affiliated faculty member for the UMASS system-wide inter-campus Biomedical Engineering & Biotechnology (BMEBT) graduate program including UMass Boston, UMass Dartmouth, UMass Lowell, and UMass Medical School-Worcester. He received his Ph.D. degree from the School of Industrial Engineering & Management, Oklahoma State University. His research is primarily focused on novel applications of data analytics, data science, and AI methods in healthcare analytics domain aimed at improving the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the healthcare systems. Oztekin's honors include several Best Paper Awards from DSI and INFORMS, Recognized Researcher Award from the Office of UMass Lowell Vice Chancellor for Research & Innovation, Teaching Excellence Award, Editors' Award for Excellence in Reviewing from the European Journal of Operational Research, Teradata University Network Faculty Scholarship Award, 29 Who Shine--the Most Influential Campus Mentor Honoree by the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education among others.

    Oztekin is serving at numerous prestigious journals (e.g. Decision Sciences, Decision Support Systems, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Omega, Annals of Operations Research, Journal of the Operational Research Society and etc.) at various capacities such as senior editor, associate editor, department editor, or editorial review board member.

    He has served as the Vice Chair and then Chair of the INFORMS Data Mining Section. He has been actively involved in the operation of the section, contributed to the section in multiple capacities and has significantly improved the section and brought it up to the level of applying for Society while collaborating with various other INFORMS sections and societies. As part of his service to INFORMS, he has previously served as Data Mining & Decision Analytics Workshop chair/co-chair for two years in 2015 and 2016. Since then, he has been serving on the Management Committee of the same workshop series. He has also organized several sessions at INFORMS conferences both as a cluster chair and session chair. He is a very active member of INFORMS and DSI.



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    Beth West
    Community Relations Coordinator
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