The Quality Statistics and Reliability (QSR) Section of INFORMS announces the Best Student Paper Competition to recognize excellence among its student members. The competition brings prestige to the QSR Section as well as to the recipients honored.
Conference dates: November 1-4, 2026
Location: San Francisco, CA
Conference website: https://meetings.informs.org/wordpress/annual/
Four finalists for the Best Student Paper Award will be selected to make presentations at the 2026 INFORMS Annual Meeting. The winner will be announced at the QSR business meeting at the conference. All finalists will receive an award certificate. The winner will also receive a plaque of recognition. The broad criteria for selecting the recipient of the QSR Best Student Paper Award are: (a) Academic significance (originality, depth, and completeness of the work and its potential impact on future research); (b) Engineering or business relevance (importance of the problem and its impact on engineering or business practice). Specifically, papers will be assessed in six aspects: originality of ideas, depth of study, thoroughness of literature review, the importance of the problem, the expected impact on future research, and potential impact on engineering or business practice.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
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Complex Systems Sensing, Modeling, and Optimization
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Complex Data Analytics and Data Fusion for Quality Assurance
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Data Analytics for Reliability Evaluation and Maintenance Optimization
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Data Analytics in Manufacturing and Service Industries
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Data Analytics for Quality and Reliability Assurance
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Design and Analysis of Modern-Day Scientific Experiments
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Decision Theory and Predictive Modeling for Uncertainty Management
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Graph Theory and Network Analysis for Quality and Reliability Applications
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Image and Functional Data Analysis
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Integrated Nanomanufacturing and Nano Informatics
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IoT-enabled Data Analytics for Manufacturing System Informatics and Control
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Maintenance and Reliability Analysis of Complex Engineering Systems
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Modeling and Analysis of Data with Complex Structures
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Predictive Modeling and Control for Complex Systems
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Quality Monitoring in Complex Manufacturing Processes
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System and Process Informatics in Advanced Manufacturing
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System Informatics for Operations Research and Operations Management
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Multimodal Data Analysis for Manufacturing and Healthcare Systems
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Federated and Distributed Learning for Complex Systems
Eligibility Requirements and Application Process:
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The award nominee must be a student member of the QSR Section (Link to join QSR).
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Previous finalists who wish to compete again should submit an entirely different paper from their previous submissions.
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Past winners are not eligible for the competition.
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The submitted paper should not have been selected as a winner of any past competitions in conferences.
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The submitted paper for the competition can be an unpublished manuscript or a published paper. If the paper has been published, the publication date (online) has to be on or after Nov 4, 2026, which is after INFORMS 2026.
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The student must be the first author. A formal, signed statement by the student's advisor should be submitted along with the paper affirming that 1) the majority of the original results presented in the paper were produced by the student rather than the advisor or other collaborators involved in the work; 2) the paper has not been selected as a winner of any past competitions in conferences; 3) the publication status of the paper, whether it is unpublished or published with a specific publication date.
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The student must be committed to presenting the paper at a special QSR session of the 2026 INFORMS Annual Meeting.
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Finalists may not be announced before other INFORMS sessions are organized. Thus, papers considered for this competition MAY be simultaneously submitted to other sessions of the INFORMS Annual Meeting. If a finalist is scheduled to present in another session, they need to present the paper twice: once in the QSR Best Student Paper Competition session and once in their previously scheduled session.
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The QSR Section does NOT own the copyright of the paper. However, the paper must be available to the QSR Section to be posted on their web page.
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Required Format for Submission: The submitted paper should have a maximum length of 6 pages, including references. The paper should have a 10-point Times Roman or Times New Roman typeface, be single-spaced, and have two columns with margins of 1 inch or more. The paper must begin with an abstract of at most 50 words. The paper must follow the required format, or it will be returned without review.
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To enter the competition, a blinded as well as an unblinded version of the paper in MS WORD or PDF format should be emailed to all Co-Chairs of the QSR Best Student Paper Competition Session, with the email subject line "Name+University+2026 QSR Best Student Paper Competition" before the deadline of July 12, 2026. This deadline will not be extended. Late submissions will be ineligible for the competition and will not be reviewed.
Timeline:
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Paper submission deadline (Submitter's local time): July 12, 2026
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Decision notifications to authors: September 28, 2026
The Co-Chairs of the INFORMS QSR Best Student Paper Competition Session:
Bo Shen, PhD (Co-Chair)
Assistant Professor
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology
Email: bo.shen@njit.edu
Cesar Ruiz Torres, PhD (Co-Chair)
Assistant Professor
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, University of Oklahoma
Email: caruiz@ou.edu
Jianxin Xie, PhD (Co-Chair)
Assistant Professor
School of Data Science, University of Virginia
Email: hcf7fd@virginia.edu
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