The Board of Directors met on April 13-14 at the 2019 INFORMS Conference on Business Analytics in Austin, Texas. The following is a summary of the meeting:
- Health of INFORMS: Involvement and use of our programs continues to expand providing increased awareness and financial stability. Publications submissions increased again (as they have every year since 2012) and our full-text downloads are well ahead of last year leading to a new goal of 2.5 million (up from our exceeded 2018 goal of 2 million). The number of stories in the media is increasing and hits to our website continue to grow.
- Visibility and Advocacy: INFORMS will host its second Government & Analytics Summit on May 20, 2019 in the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, D.C. The overall objective continues to be to increase awareness and understanding of Operations Research & Analytics among key national policy makers. The keynote speaker will be John M. McHugh, Former Secretary of the United States Army. An Ad-Hoc Advocacy Governance Committee has been created and is currently working to meet its charge. As a result of the initiative, there have been numerous interactions with Capitol Hill.
- Meetings: Attendance at the Analytics Meeting was 1,017 just 20 shy of breaking last year's record setting attendance. Exhibits and sponsorships have grown, and exhibit space was sold out at the Analytics Meeting. The 2020 Conference on Security will take place February 9, 2020 in Monterey, California.
- Subdivisions: Interest in student chapters is increasing with 65 student chapter officers attending the Student Leadership Conference, held April 5-6, 2019 in Baltimore, Maryland. The Military Applications Society has been renamed the Military and Security Society.
- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: INFORMS is an inaugural member of the Societies Consortium on Sexual Harassment in STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine). The Consortium's mission is to advance professional and ethical conduct, climate, and culture across STEMM fields.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy: The Ad Hoc Committee on AI Strategy presented an overview of AI and discussed the intersection of AI and OR and how each one can benefit from the other. This will be an on-going discussion with the Board, so as to gain insight into opportunities, synergies and potential next steps.
- Summer 2019 Election: The 2019 slate of candidates has been determined for the following Board positions: President-Elect, Secretary, VP-International, VP-Practice, VP-Membership and Professional Recognition, and VP-Marketing, Communications, & Outreach. More information is in ORMS Today, April, page 61. The online election will be held from August 1 through September 30.
- The next Board meeting will be in Baltimore, July 16-17, 2019.
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Victoria (Tory) C. P. Chen, Ph.D.
Secretary of INFORMS
secretary@mail.informs.orgProfessor
Department of Industrial, Manufacturing, & Systems Engineering,
Center on Stochastic Modeling, Optimization, & Statistics (COSMOS),
The University of Texas at Arlington,
Campus Box 19017,
Arlington, TX 76019
Email:
vchen@uta.edu------------------------------