Winter 2021

In this Issue:

• Message from the Section Chair

• Data-Driven Research Challenge

• Practice Webinar Series

• Student Live Paper Series

• Upcoming Conferences

• How to Join

Message from the Section Chair

Dear member:  I hope this message finds you well.

This newsletter provides some updates on a number of initiatives that the Section is pursuing including the data-driven competition, our webinar series and the student paper series. Our section conference is now officially scheduled for June 28-30, 2021 in a virtual format. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the organizing committee Goker Aydin, Ozge Sahin and Ruxian Wang for all their hard work. I also would like to encourage everyone in our community to register and submit an abstract. Please go to the conference website (here) for details.

I am pleased to report that we have formed two fantastic committees for our annual Section and Jeff McGill Student Paper awards.

• Section Award: The committee is being chaired by Srikanth Jagabathula (NYU Stern) and includes Ming Hu (UToronto Rotman), Jun Li (Michigan Ross) and Gustavo Vulcano (UTDT). The nomination deadline is July 1st, 2021. For more details, please visit the award website (here).

• Jeff McGill Student Paper Award: The committee is being chaired by Yonatan Gur (Stanford GSB) and includes Ali Aouad (LBS), Kimon Drakopoulos, (USC Marshal), Kris Johnson Ferreira (HBS), Hamsa Sridhar Bastani (UPenn Wharton), Nikos Trichakis, (MIT Sloan) and Fanyin Zheng (Columbia GBS). The submission deadline is July 21^st, 2021. For details, please visit the award website (here).

I want to thank all committee members for supporting these important awards.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to announce that Ilan Lobel (former chair of the Section) has been appointed as Co-Area Editor of the Revenue Management and Market Analytics (RM&MA) Area of Operations Research, joining Gustavo Vulcano (also a former chair of the Section) who continues as Co-Area Editor.  Ilan is replacing Ramesh Johari who served in that capacity for the last three years. Please join me in congratulating Ilan on his new editorial position and thanking Ramesh for the service he provided launching the RM&MA area of Operations Research. Also, two of our current board members, Daniela Saban and Ozge Sahin, have joined the RM&MA area as associate editors, so congratulations to them as well.

If you have any suggestions or questions, please feel free to reach out to me. Also, don’t forget to invite your colleagues and students to join our RMP Section (details on how to join at the end).

Best wishes.

René Caldentey

Eli B. and Harriet B. Williams Professor of Operations Management
The University of Chicago, Booth School of Business

[Return to Top]

Data-Driven Research Challenge

The RMP section is partnering with NetEase Cloud Music, one of the largest music streaming companies in China, to offer RMP members access to NetEase Cloud Music App’s impression-level data and encourage data-driven research on innovative marketplaces. In this competition, researchers will compete by building data-driven models using real data to address either some of the suggested questions below or questions of their own interest.

Data:

• 57+ million impressions/displays of music content cards recommendations
• 2+ million users from November 1, 2019 to November 30, 2019
• Data on clicks, likes, follows and user specific information

Example Research Questions:

• How could the company design the recommender system to minimize the number of inactive users?
• What are the characteristics and preferences of active users on the platform?
• How to design the recommender system to encourage more content creation?

Eligibility:

• RMP members are encouraged to participate.
• At least one author must be an existing RMP member in 2020.
• Only one submission per RMP member.

Timeline:

• (Updated) April 30, 2021: Competition submissions deadline.
• May 2021: Judges to review submissions and select finalists.
• June 2021 at RMP Conference: Finalist presentations and winner(s) announcement.

Perks for Finalists:

• Fast Track at NRL Department of Revenue Management and Marketplace Design
• Competition review reports forwarded to Revenue Management and Market Analytics department at Management Science

More information can be found at: https://connect.informs.org/rmp/awards/data-competition

[Return to Top]

We launched the RMP student live paper series on YouTube last year to promote works by RMP Section’s student members. This RMP student live paper series is an ongoing effort, and we will keep adding new presentations to the list. If you are interested, please send an email to RMPlivepaper20@gmail.com. There are already 18 talks in the channel! All talks can be accessed through our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVF0N1jTIgHOiepvKgrXAnw/videos.

To become a member of the Revenue Management and Pricing Section, it is the easiest (but not necessary) just to add it to the regular INFORMS membership. Those who’d rather focus exclusively on the Section’s activities can become members only of the Section by calling 1-800-446-3676. More information can be found at: http://connect.informs.org/rmp/membership/how-to-join

As a member of the Section, you will receive benefits such as our newsletter, registration fee discount to annual section conference, 50% off the subscription rate to the Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, and listserver announcements. More information can be found at: http://connect.informs.org/rmp/membership/benefits