INFORMS DFW Chapter members are encouraged to share any achievements in their career, publications, innovations, awards, opportunities, etc., with the rest of the members. Please send us a brief description of your achievements, any latest developments in OR/MS in the DFW area, any awards/opportunities, or anything that the rest of the members may be interested in and we would post it here.
Formation of several committees in:
- Transportation
- Supply Chain
- Membership and Public Relations
- Education
Their main objectives are:
- To help keep the local INFORMS community abreast of new OR development in their corresponding areas
- To select speakers for the Chapter meeting
- To facilitate and foster strong INFORMS student chapters at local universitie
- To facilitate networking between Industry, Faculty and student members
If you would like to participate in any of these subcommittees, contact their chairs directly. Their emails are posted at the Chapter’s website.
For INFORMS eNEWS email from the national organization, subscribe here
6/1/10
Election Results for D/FW INFORMS Chapter Officers 2010-11
The Dallas/Ft. Worth Chapter of INFORMS held their election results for the 2010-11 year. The new officers for the chapter:
President: Metin Cakanyildirim UTD
VP/Pres-elect: Sanjay Mehta Pepsico
Secretary: Juan Morales BNSF Railway
Treasurer: Ronald Chu American Airlines
The new officers will be gathering in late summer to get ready for another year. You may contact the new officers to congratulate them and offer suggestions for the D/FW Chapter.
We want to thank Patricia Neri for a wonderful 2009-10 year for the D/FW Chapter. This past year she and the officers help put together talks and instructional presentations from Finance and Economy, Transportation to Supply Chain. This past year Patricia led great opportunities to network with Operations Research and Management Science professionals. Also help re-cultivate the student chapter of INFORMS at SMU.
11/11/09
SMU Student INFORMS Chapter Kicks Off New Year
The INFORMS Chapter at Southern Methodist University (SMU) Kickoff Event was held on November 2nd on the SMU campus in Dallas. The purpose of the event was to educate OR/MS students about what INFORMS does on a broad level, as well as how students at SMU can get involved with the campus chapter. The event proved to be extremely successful with a turnout of about 50 students.
Victoria Cohen, Co-President of the SMU chapter, introduced herself and spoke about why the student officers of the campus chapter had decided to revitalize the chapter at SMU. This was followed by a brief introduction of the current chapter officers and their roles.
Following Victoria’s introduction, Dr. Richard Barr, Associate Professor and Department Chair, provided the audience with a brief video explaining the impact of OR/MS in various industries including government, military, medicine and more. Dr. Barr is an INFORMS member and is currently on the membership committee. His experience in the OR field, along with knowledge of the INFORMS national organization provided valuable input to new students that are considering becoming members of the INFORMS chapter at SMU.
Dr. Eli Olinick, Associate Professor at SMU and faculty advisor of the SMU INFORMS chapter then spoke on his specific involvement with INFORMS and provided information on publications and journals that are available to those who join INFORMS. Dr. Olinick has been involved with INFORMS for over 10 years and chairs the Education Subcommittee of the DFW chapter. His advice and vision for the chapter has been instrumental is revitalizing the chapter.
The final speaker of the evening was Dr. Patricia Neri, President of the DFW Regional INFORMS Chapter. Dr. Neri spoke to students about her experience with INFORMS. She was able to relate to many of the students in the audience, because she too got her start in INFORMS at the collegiate level. Further, Dr. Neri discussed some very creative applications of OR/MS that she has seen in a wide variety of disciplines. She concluded her speech by emphasizing the importance of collaboration between the campus and regional chapters. Many regional meetings that are organized by Dr. Neri have taken place on the SMU campus, and with the chapter now being active we anticipate frequent collaboration with the regional chapter.
The event came to a close with a few announcements from Public Relations Co-Officer, Allison Griffin. Allison announced that she had arranged for Dr. Geoffrey Orsak, Dean of the Bobby B. Lyle School of Engineering at SMU, to give the student chapter a private tour of the new Caruth building that will house SMU’s department of Engineering Management, Information, and Systems.
The chapter officers have all made substantial effort in revitalizing the chapter and planning the kickoff event. We received tremendous help and support from our faculty. Drs. Barr and Olinick were instrumental in supporting and promoting the event. Further, Dr. Neri’s attendance at the event provided the students with an understanding of the impact of INFORMS on a regional and national level. Attendance at the event was excellent and we look forward to facilitating many more events on the SMU campus.
9/23/09
INFORMS Fellow awarded to Stecke from UTD
From the UTD News Center....
A society for operations management professionals has conferred top honors on Kathryn E. Stecke, lauding the School of Management professor for a long list of contributions to the field. Stecke was chosen to be a fellow of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), one of only 11 chosen this year out of the society’s 10,000 members. Dr. Stecke was cited for contributions to research on flexible manufacturing and supply chains, and for creating opportunities for others in her field to disseminate their research in conferences and journals. The Ashbel Smith Professor of Information Systems and Operations Management will receive the accolade during an induction ceremony Oct. 12 in San Diego at the INFORMS annual meeting. Dr. Stecke’s current research focuses on flexible manufacturing, activity-based costing in automated manufacturing, quality competitiveness indices and supply chain issues and disruptions.
Long an active member of INFORMS, Stecke was a co-recipient of the group's distinguished service award, the Kimball Medal, at its annual meeting last year. The organization also recognized her paper, “Formulation and Solution of Nonlinear Integer Production Planning Problems for Flexible Systems” as one of the 50 most influential published in the journal Management Science (Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 273-288, March 1983) during the past 50 years.
Wireless LAN Research Grant for Kennington, Olinick from EMIS, SMU
The Office of Naval Research has awarded the following research grant to EMIS faculty Jeff Kennington and Eli Olinick: Using Optimization to Design Wireless Local Area Networks
Developing a good design for a wireless local area network for a multistory building is a challenging problem. The designer must determine the number and location of the access points (radio transmitters and receivers), the best power setting for these access points, and the frequency to be assigned to the access points. Since the exact location of the mobile devices (i.e. users) is not known, evaluation of a given design requires a statistical analysis over a random sample of potential locations. Our objective is to develop optimization-based prototype design tools for both current and future versions of these networks.
Yu Awarded Research Grant on Engineering Supply Chain Systems
EMIS faculty member Dr. Junfang Yu recently received a research grant from Sandia National Laboratories.
Collaborative Environment Implementation, Data Management and Security in Supply Chain System
This funded research project will help Sandia to design and implement a secure and effective Electronic Component Information System (ECIS) which is being used by design and development engineers, and other personnel along their supply chain in a collaborative environment. The scope of the work includes the design and implementation of the control mechanism and management schema for the engineering release of various designs and subsystems to be used in a complex weapon system. The project will also help Sandia to design and implement their ECIS so it could be used in a secure and collaborative way
Dr. Kathryn E. Stecke, Ashbel Smith Professor of Operations Management at the UT Dallas School of Management, has been chosen to receive the Kimball Medal from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) during the annual INFORMS meeting in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 12, 2008.
INFORMS awards the Kimball Medal each year to recognize distinguished service to both the organization and the profession of operations research and the management sciences.
Long an active member of INFORMS, Stecke has chaired national and international meetings for the organization. She served two terms on the INFORMS Board of Directors, first from 1999 to 2001 and again from 2003 to 2005 when she was vice president of INFORMS’ sections and societies. INFORMS has also recognized her research, naming her paper, “Formulation and Solution of Nonlinear Integer Production Planning Problems for Flexible Manufacturing Systems,” as “one of the 50 most influential papers” published in the society’s journal Management Science during the last half century.
Before joining the UT Dallas School of Management faculty in 2002, Stecke served for 21 years on the faculty of the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. She earned her Ph.D. from Purdue University in 1981.
At UT Dallas she teachers classes in operations management and flexible manufacturing strategies. In 2007, she received the Distinguished Service Award of the Manufacturing and Service Operations Management (MSOM) Society, whose parent organization is INFORMS.
The award is named after George E. Kimball, a pioneer in the field of Quantum Chemistry and later, in the field of Operations Research.
Stecke’s co-recipient of the 2008 Kimball Medal is Dr. John Birge, the Jerry W. and Carol Lee Levin Professor of Operations Management at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. The two will each receive a medallion and certificate commemorating their achievements during the annual INFORMS meeting in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 12.