Undergrad Operations Research Redistricting Prize

Announcing…the 2023-2024 Undergraduate Operations Research Redistricting Prize!

The competition is open to undergraduate students at U.S. universities who are taking a course in Operations Research (OR). One motivation for the competition is to excite students about the field of OR. To encourage students to participate in the competition, a member of the top-performing team will receive $1,000 in travel support to attend the 2024 INFORMS Annual Meeting in Seattle, WA and compete for the INFORMS Undergraduate OR Prize.

Timeline:

• August 2023-May 2024. Instructors of undergrad OR courses in fall 2023 or spring 2024 are invited to use redistricting as a course project. Pre-register your class by sending an email to buchanan@okstate.edu. Registrants will receive districting-related course materials (e.g., project descriptions, grading rubrics, homework questions, class activities, data files).
• May 31, 2024. Deadline for instructors to nominate one team by submitting the team's project documents to buchanan@okstate.edu.
• June 1-15, 2024. Judges will have two weeks to score the submissions and select a winner.
• June 16, 2024. The winner will be notified, giving them two weeks to finalize their submission for the INFORMS Undergraduate OR Prize (whose deadline is usually June 30th).
• October 20-23, 2024. INFORMS Annual Meeting in Seattle, WA.

Helpful Resources:

• A collection of OR Redistricting Resources
• A GitHub repo with example districting codes
• Instructors can email buchanan@okstate.edu to request course materials (e.g., project descriptions, grading rubrics, homework questions, class activities, data files)

Organizer:

• Austin Buchanan, Oklahoma State University

Judges:

• Jeanne N. Clelland, University of Colorado
• Adolfo Escobedo, Arizona State University
• Soraya Ezazipour, Oklahoma State University
• Cyrus Hettle, Georgia Tech
• Robert Hildebrand, Virginia Tech
• Ian Ludden, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
• Brendan Ruskey, Lehigh University
• Maral Shahmizad, Oklahoma State University
• Hamidreza Validi, Texas Tech University
• Jose L. Walteros, University at Buffalo

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Austin Buchanan
Associate Professor
Oklahoma State University
Stillwater OK
https://ceat.okstate.edu/iem/people/buchanan-faculty-profile.html
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