INFORMS Open Forum

We are pleased to announce and invite participation in the NSF-IMA Industrial Mathematics Clinic: Tackling Collaboratively Emerging Problems in Industry (https://www.ima.umn.edu/press-room/industrial-math-clinic-workshop) to be held on the campus of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities from July 24 to August 11, 2017, starting with a kick off workshop from July 24 to July 26, 2017. The event is supported by the National Science Foundation through the Institute of Mathematics and Applications (IMA). This is a unique event that will bring together representatives from industry and academia to collaborate on challenging problems in industry with a focus on analytics. There are four application areas of particular interest:

• Retail analytics and revenue management,
• Smart transportation and logistics,
• Sharing economy, and
• Healthcare operations and medical decision-making.

The event will leverage the experience of several leading academics in fields related to analytics (e.g., operations research, statistics, computer science, and economics) who have been involved in extended collaboration with industry or who have started companies of their own.

Confirmed academic keynote speakers and panelists include: Mark Daskin, Karan Girotra, Steve Graves, Wallace Hopp, Ramesh Johari, Warren Powell, Andrew Schaeffer, David Shmoys, and David Simchi-Levi.  

The goal of the event is to build a bridge between industry, senior academics, and junior researchers to work together on important and technically challenging problems with potential high impact on practice.

The event will consist of a three day workshop with keynote presentations from both distinguished academics and industry leaders, panel discussions, and breakout sessions along the above four themes. During these breakout sessions, selected representatives from industry will describe important problems (technical, operational, or business model-related) their companies face and will outline opportunities for collaboration with academics.

The three-day workshop will be followed by a three-week clinic (an intensive collaborative residency program) involving faculty and researchers (selected nationally and internationally) who will coalesce around different problems sponsored (or inspired) by industry. During the clinic, participants will work in small groups and, in some cases, in close contact with industry. This work will continue after the clinic and over the course of several months with a follow up workshop to be held the following summer where clinic participants will report on progress they have made and share their experience.

We invite participation for both the workshop and the clinic at all levels (senior faculty, junior faculty, post docs, and graduate students). Thanks to generous support from NSF, we will be able to provide financial support for travel and housing for participants (an on-campus room with private bathroom or an equivalent subsidy for hotel) and a daily per diem for expenses.

Individuals interested in participating need to apply through the IMA website at https://www.ima.umn.edu/applications/index.php?event_id=2476. Applicants should provide a brief statement describing their research interest and experience. Because of limits on space and budget, only a limited number of participants can be accommodated. Applications will be reviewed by the organizers and selected applicants will be notified (in selecting participants, the organizers will look for fit with the thematic areas and will strive for a balance of interests across the areas). Graduate student applications for the clinic will be considered only if accompanied by an application from a faculty mentor.

The applications will be reviewed and decisions will made on a rolling basis. Interested individuals are encouraged to apply as soon as possible but no later than April 24, 2017.

For additional information, please contact one of the program organizers listed below.

Organizing Committee: Saif Benjaafar (saif@umn.edu), Ankur Mani (amani@umn.edu), and Zizhuo Wang (zwang@umn.edu)

Margaret Brandeau
Felipe Caro
Karen Donohue
Marshall L. Fisher
Ming Hu
George Karypis
Gilad Lerman
Diana Negoescu
Alex (Sandy) Pentland
David Shmoys
Lav Varshney