The ENRE Early Career Best Paper Award is presented annually at the INFORMS Annual Meeting to one or more young researcher(s) for authoring an outstanding paper related to the theory and/or application of operations research-management science methods to a problem in energy, natural resources, or the environment. The award serves as a recognition of promising young researchers who are at the beginning of their academic or industrial careers.
2026 Competition: ENRE Early Career Best Paper Award
Committee Chair: Chiara Lo Prete (chiaraloprete@psu.edu), Penn State University
Eligibility Criteria:
The author(s) and the work must satisfy the following conditions to be eligible for the award.
- None of the authors may have been awarded his/her terminal degree more than six calendar years prior to January 1, 2026.
- There is no requirement of publication; however, if the paper is published, then it must not have been published before January 1, 2022.
- The topic of the paper must belong to one or more of the fields of energy, natural resources, or the environment.
- The prize may be awarded only once in a lifetime to any individual; thus, no author of a nominated paper may be a previous recipient of the ENRE Early Career Best Paper Award.
Submission Requirements:
We encourage ENRE members to either submit their own papers or nominate papers written by others.
ENRE membership is a requirement for the nominator, but not for the nominee.
To nominate a paper for the ENRE Early Career Best Paper Award, please fill out the central ENRE Best Paper Awards Nomination Form by June 22, 2026, to:
1. Verify the eligibility of the author and the nominated paper
2. Upload the electronic version of the paper (pdf format)
The winner(s) will give a short presentation of the winning paper in the ENRE Awards Session during the 2026 INFORMS Annual Meeting. The presenter must register for the conference and will be responsible for the associated travel and registration expenses. The award includes an official certificate from INFORMS.
2025 Early Career Best Paper Award
Winner: Vladimir Dvorkin
Manuscript: "Regression Equilibrium in Electricity Markets"
Award committee: Chiara Lo Prete (chair), Zhaomiao Guo, Christoph Graf, Anirudh Subramanyam
2023 Early Career Best Paper Award
Winner: Bolun Xu
Manuscript: "Dynamic Valuation of Battery Lifetime"
IEEE Transactions on Power Systems (May 2022)
Award committee: Sabah Bushaj (chair), Zahra Gharibi, Hoda Bidkhori, SangWoo Park
2022
Winners: Chen Jin, Luyi Yang, and Cungen Zhu
Award committee: Verena Hagspiel (chair), Chris Dent, Yury Dvorkin, Sonja Wogrin
2019
Winner: Kwon-gi Mun, Raza A. Rafique, Yao Zhao
Manuscript: Designing Hydro Supply Chains for Energy, Food and Flood
Honorable Mention:
Author: Luyi Gui.
Manuscript: Extended Producer Responsibility in Developing Economies: Design Incentives and Infrastructure Development.
2018
Winner: Soongeol Kwon, Department of Systems Science and Industrial Engineering at Binghamton University, SUNY
Manuscript: Ensuring renewable energy utilization for and energy-efficient data center.
Committee Chair: Ramteen Sioshansi, Ohio State University
2017
Winner: Arda Yenipazarli, Department of Logistics & Supply Chain Management, Georgia Southern University.
Manuscript: Managing new and remanufactured products to mitigate environmental damage under emissions regulation, European Journal of Operational Research, 249(1), 117-130, 2016.
Committee Chair: Ramteen Sioshansi, Ohio State University
2016
Winners: Daniel Huppmann (IIASA) and Sauleh Siddiqui (Johns Hopkins University).
"An exact solution method for binary equilibrium problems with compensation and the power market uplift problem". DIW Berlin Discussion Paper 1475, 2015.
Committee Chair: Steffen Rebennack, Colorado School of Mines
Winners from previous years
Click here for a full list of past recipients of the Young Researcher Prize...