Student Paper Prize

The INFORMS Optimization Society Student Paper Prize, established in 2006 and administered by the Optimization Society of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences, is awarded annually at the INFORMS Annual Meeting to one (or more) students for the most outstanding paper in optimization that is submitted to and received, or published in a refereed professional journal within the three calendar years preceding the year of the award. The nominee/applicant must be a student on the first of January of the year of application/nomination. The prize serves as an esteemed recognition of promising students who are looking for an academic or industrial career.

The award includes a cash amount of US$3,000 and a citation certificate. The award winner(s) will be invited to give a fifteen-minute presentation in a special session sponsored by the Optimization Society during the INFORMS annual meeting. The winners will be responsible for all travel expenses associated with the presentation of their paper at the INFORMS meeting. Award winners are also asked to contribute an article about their award-winning work to the Optimization Society newsletter.

Eligibility

The author(s) and the paper must satisfy the following conditions to be eligible for the prize:

  1. The paper must be published in, or submitted and received by, a refereed professional journal during the three calendar years prior to the year of the award.
  2. Every nominee must be a student on the first of January in the year of application/nomination.
  3. Any co-author(s) not nominated for the award should send a letter indicating that the majority of the nominated work was performed by the nominee(s).
  4. The topic of the paper must belong to the field of optimization in its broadest sense.
  5. The prize may be awarded once in a lifetime to any individual.
  6. A nominee can be a (co-)author in at most one paper submitted to the prize. Only one nominee per paper is allowed, and the same paper cannot be submitted by multiple nominees.
  7. This paper may not have been a winner, runner-up, or honorable mention in any other INFORMS award.

Application process

A complete entry consists of a single PDF file containing:

  1. A copy of the paper;
  2. A letter signed by all co-authors attesting that the majority of the work was done by the student(s);
  3. A nomination letter attesting that the eligibility conditions have been satisfied by the entrant(s) and the paper.
  4. Fill out the nomination form: https://tinyurl.com/IOS2023SP

Nomination packages should be emailed to the chair of the prize committee.

The deadline for nomination is July 10th, 2023, 11:59 PM EDT.

Winners and committee members

Year

Winner(s)

Committee members

2023

Sanjeeb Dash (chair), Merve Bodur, Frank Curtis, Robert Hildebrand, Omar El Housni, Giacomo Nannicini, Luis Zuluaga

2022

Bahar Taskesen
Honorable mention: Sebastian Perez-Salazar
Honorable mention: Haoming Shen

Weijun Xie (chair), Andres Gomez, Aida Khajavirad, Carla Michini

2021

Alex L. Wang
Honorable mention: Shixuan Zhang

Ruth Misener (chair), Paul Grigas, Robert Hildebrand, Weijun Xie

2020

Yingjie Bi
Second place: Digivijay Boob

Fatma Kilinc-Karzan (chair), Maryam Fazel, Daniel Kuhn, Andrea Lodi

2019

Lijun Ding
Second Place: Dabeen Lee
Honorable Mention: Yiling Zhang
Honorable Mention: Bachir El Khadir

Santanu Dey (chair), Frank E. Curtis, Daphne Skipper, Mengdi Wang

2018

Yong Sheng Soh
Second place
Felix Happach and Joey Huchette
Honorable mention:
Yanli Liu
Naman Agarwal and Brian Bullins
Nam Ho-Nguyen

Dan Iancu (chair), Amir Ali Ahmadi, Frank Curtis, Illya Hicks

2017

Frans de Ruiter
Honorable mention: Will Ma

Vineet Goyal (chair), Kiavash Kianfar, Javier Peña, Ermin Wei.

2016

Gonzalo Muñoz 
Honorable mention: Hamza Fawzi

Jim Luedtke (chair), Güzin Bayraksan, Shiqian Ma, Mohit Tawarmalani

2015

Paul Grigas

Mohit Tawarmalani (chair), Fatma Kılınç-Karzan, Warren Powell, Uday Shanbhag

2014

Damek Davis

Santanu Dey (chair), Serhat Aybat, Güzin Bayraksan, François Margot

2013

Afonso Bandeira

Santanu S. Dey, Simge Küçükyavuz (chair), Guanghui Lan

2012

Diego Morán

Simge Küçükyavuz, Katya Scheinberg (chair), Renata Sotirov.

2011

Daniel Dadush

Matthias Koeppe (chair), Jean-Philippe Richard, Katya Scheinberg

2010

Shiqian Ma

Miguel Anjos, Alper Atamtürk, Sven Leyffer (chair)

2009

Dan Iancu

Shabbir Ahmed (chair), Sam Burer, Jon Lee

2007

Juan Pablo Vielma

François Margot, Tom McCormick, Edwin Romeijn, David Shanno, Yinyu Ye (chair)