This webinar will explore how to attract more people to OR/analytics research devoted to diversity, equity and inclusion and racial and social justice. Panelists will address challenges associated with balancing needs for research as distinct from service and teaching; solving problems using ‘traditional’ analytic methods as well as community-engaged and participatory approaches; choosing research outlets associated with scholarly as well as practice-focused impacts; ensuring meaningful participation by members of traditionally underrepresented groups, and addressing concerns especially relevant to early-career researchers.
The participants are:
Larry Snyder, Harvey E. Wagner Professor of Industrial & Systems Engineering and Deputy Provost for Academic Affairs, Lehigh University, lvs2@lehigh.edu
Karen Hicklin, Assistant Professor, Population Health Science and Policy, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, karen.hicklin@mountsinai.org
Phebe Vayanos, Andrew and Erna Viterbi Early Career Chair in Engineering, Associate Professor of Industrial & Systems Engineering and Computer Science,
Co-Director of Center for Artificial Intelligence in Society, University of Southern California, phebe.vayanos@usc.edu
Panelist Information:
Karen Hicklin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Population Health Science and Policy with affiliations in the Center for Biostatistics, the Tisch Cancer Institute, and the Blavatnik Family Women's Health Research Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Karen received her PhD from the Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at North Carolina State University and completed postdoctoral training in the Department of Health Behavior and Department of Statistics and Operations Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research interests include data-driven approaches to model decision making for improved health care quality and delivery with applications in women’s health, cancer care, and health disparities.
Larry Snyder is the Harvey E. Wagner Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering and the Deputy Provost for Faculty Affairs at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA. He received his Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences from Northwestern University. His research interests include the application of optimization tools to problems in supply chains and energy systems, and more recently, the relationship between optimization and social justice. He co-teaches an interdisciplinary course at Lehigh called Algorithms and Social Justice, which is cross-listed between ISE and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. He is co-author of the textbook Fundamentals of Supply Chain Theory, published in 2011 by Wiley, which won the IIE/Joint Publishers Book-of-the-Year Award in 2012; a second edition was published in 2019. He has also written two books of puzzles called The Opex Analytics Weekly Puzzle, volumes 1 and 2. For more information, visit coral.ise.lehigh.edu/larry.
Phebe Vayanos holds an Andrew and Erna Viterbi Early Career Chair in Engineering at the University of Southern California where she is an Associate Professor of Industrial & Systems Engineering and Computer Science and co-Directs CAIS, the Center for Artificial Intelligence in Society. Her research aims to advance integer, stochastic, and robust optimization, and their interface with machine learning, causal inference, and economics to enable the design of predictive and prescriptive models that are suitable to deploy in high-stakes settings. She aims to directly apply the methods and tools she creates in her work to make a positive impact on society, and in particular to support underserved and marginalized communities. She holds a PhD degree in Operations Research and an MEng degree in Electrical & Electronic Engineering, both from Imperial College London. She is a recipient of the NSF CAREER award and the INFORMS Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Ambassador Program Award.
Organizers:
Michael Johnson is Professor in the Department of Public Policy and Public Affairs at University of Massachusetts Boston. He is founder of the INFORMS Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee.
Grani A. Hanasusanto is Associate Professor of Industrial & Enterprise Systems Engineering at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and member of the INFORMS Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee.