INFORMS Quality, Statistics, and Reliability Teaching Award
The INFORMS Quality, Statistics, and Reliability (QSR) Section is excited to announce the INFORMS QSR Section Teaching Award. This award recognizes excellence in teaching courses in quality, statistics, and reliability.
Eligibility
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The candidate should be nominated for the instruction of an undergraduate or graduate course in quality, statistics, data science, and reliability methods or applications. The course must be offered as part of an academic program in engineering, statistics, or management (i.e., Industrial Engineering, Systems Engineering, Statistics, Engineering Management, Civil Engineering, or Management Science, among others).
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Course materials must have been developed/updated and taught solely by the candidate.
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If selected for the award, the candidate should be able to attend the INFORMS Annual Meeting and may present to share their teaching philosophy and experience.
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We welcome and encourage nominations from around the globe! If the original materials are not in English, both the original materials and their translation should be submitted.
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The previous awardee is not eligible for re-application.
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The candidate must be a member of the QSR Section.
Nomination
Nominations may be made by a faculty colleague or a student (who has taken the course from the candidate). The nomination package must consist of the following in a single PDF file:
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Table of contents.
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Letters of support from the nominator and two other individuals (up to 2 pages for each letter). At least one of the three letters must be from a faculty member and one from a student.
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A course syllabus and samples of course materials (up to 20 pages).
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At least one, and up to four, recent teaching evaluations for the course being recognized (official evaluation documents containing unabridged student comments). For international institutions outside the US, if teaching evaluations are not available in the institution, one more support letter is treated equivalently to an evaluation.
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Teaching vitae of the candidate, e.g., experience, achievement, and leadership in teaching (1 page).
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A teaching statement by the individual being nominated (1 page)
Criteria
The judges will use the following criteria in evaluating the applications submitted.
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Design and Content Quality: The appropriateness/relevance of the course content to educating the target audience on up-to-date QSR concepts.
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Active Learning: The development and/or adoption of teaching activities or pedagogies that encourage student participation, engagement, and learning of QSR concepts throughout the course.
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Innovation in Teaching: Teach innovative topics and/or use innovative approaches to teach the contents and practices of QSR.
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Impact and Student Satisfaction: Demonstration of the impact and value of teaching QSR content to students, the department (program), and the community. Examples include, but are not limited to, the number of students taught, feedback from students both in and out of class, and feedback from audiences in industry or business.
Submission and Award Timeline
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Please email the entire nomination package as ONE PDF document to the award committee chairs by the end of Aug 14, 2026, at the applicant's local time.
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One winner will be notified by Oct 2, 2026.
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The award will be presented at the 2026 INFORMS Annual Meeting.
Conflict of Interest Policy
Societies and Sessions must follow standard conflict of interest guidelines. Those guidelines include, but are not limited to:
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Council members serving on the award committee and the society/session chairs of QSR should be ineligible for awards during the period of their service.
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The awards committee (or judging committee) should not include members who have either a personal or professional relationship with the nominees. For example, a faculty member should not be judging a competition where a participant from the same university is a nominee.
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The awards committee (or judging committee) should actively change its membership on a rotating basis from year to year to ensure fairness and equity. That is, some members of the judging committee should roll off the committee, and new members should roll on.
Committee Chairs.
Bo Shen, bo.shen@njit.edu
Dan Li, dli27@uw.edu
Sahand Hajifar, Sahand.Hajifar@park.edu
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Bo Shen
Assistant Professor
New Jersey Institute of Technology
Newark NJ
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