INFORMS Open Forum

Everyone has a different path, both academic and professional. I am curious about a few things,

1. At what point did you lean towards OR/MS (e.g. university, early/late in career)?
2. What has prepared you for your current position, whether it be academic or practitioner?
3. Which other professions have you considered in the past?

If you spoke to a layperson, could you explain what you do, and how you make a difference?

Food for thought

------------------------------
Andrew Acosta
Data Scientist
Milesius Capital Resources LLC
Chicago IL
andrew@acm.org
------------------------------

1. I got to know OR/MS because of a coursework project. Prior to that, I was an ordinary undergraduate in statistics and the only thing I knew about OR/MS was the graphical method of linear programming, which is taught in high school. At that time, we just found the optimal solution by considering the vertices one by one (or pushing a ruler on graph paper).
2. Owing to that project, I was lucky enough to meet Prof. Janny Leung, the current president of IFORS, who inspired me to pursue further study in OR/MS. Then I just had the same journey as many researchers did - getting a Ph.D. Though most of my projects were application-oriented and some were from the industry, I have never been a practitioner.
3. Not a lot but they're quite different. Accountant, (clinical) psychologist, and actuary. These were all on my mind when I was in high school or a freshman. They were gone as I changed my major to statistics at the end of the first year. Realistically speaking, I would have been a business analyst or data scientist if I had not taken that course and gotten to know OR/MS.

I often get this question about what I do from my friends or relatives. To avoid bombarding them with jargon and keep it succinct, I just say "I consider problems that are too painful to be decided manually" and give the example of scheduling a dinner/outing with many people, as they all know how painful the process is. Clearly, this isn't the full picture but describes what I do in a minute or so.

------------------------------
Vincent Tsz Fai Chow
Department of Logistics and Maritime Studies
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
Email: tsz-fai.chow@polyu.edu.hk
https://tfvchow.github.io
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 12-10-2022 22:48
From: Andrew Acosta
Subject: What Brought You to OR/MS?

Everyone has a different path, both academic and professional. I am curious about a few things,

1. At what point did you lean towards OR/MS (e.g. university, early/late in career)?
2. What has prepared you for your current position, whether it be academic or practitioner?
3. Which other professions have you considered in the past?

If you spoke to a layperson, could you explain what you do, and how you make a difference?

Food for thought

------------------------------
Andrew Acosta
Data Scientist
Milesius Capital Resources LLC
Chicago IL
andrew@acm.org
------------------------------

Vincent,
Great answer. I love your "example of scheduling a dinner/outing with many people, as they all know how painful the process is."
Elena

------------------------------
Elena Gerstmann, PhD
Executive Director
INFORMS
egerstmann@INFORMS.org
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 12-11-2022 09:21
From: Vincent Tsz Fai Chow
Subject: What Brought You to OR/MS?

1. I got to know OR/MS because of a coursework project. Prior to that, I was an ordinary undergraduate in statistics and the only thing I knew about OR/MS was the graphical method of linear programming, which is taught in high school. At that time, we just found the optimal solution by considering the vertices one by one (or pushing a ruler on graph paper).
2. Owing to that project, I was lucky enough to meet Prof. Janny Leung, the current president of IFORS, who inspired me to pursue further study in OR/MS. Then I just had the same journey as many researchers did - getting a Ph.D. Though most of my projects were application-oriented and some were from the industry, I have never been a practitioner.
3. Not a lot but they're quite different. Accountant, (clinical) psychologist, and actuary. These were all on my mind when I was in high school or a freshman. They were gone as I changed my major to statistics at the end of the first year. Realistically speaking, I would have been a business analyst or data scientist if I had not taken that course and gotten to know OR/MS.

I often get this question about what I do from my friends or relatives. To avoid bombarding them with jargon and keep it succinct, I just say "I consider problems that are too painful to be decided manually" and give the example of scheduling a dinner/outing with many people, as they all know how painful the process is. Clearly, this isn't the full picture but describes what I do in a minute or so.

------------------------------
Vincent Tsz Fai Chow
Department of Logistics and Maritime Studies
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
Email: tsz-fai.chow@polyu.edu.hk
https://tfvchow.github.io

Original Message:
Sent: 12-10-2022 22:48
From: Andrew Acosta
Subject: What Brought You to OR/MS?

Everyone has a different path, both academic and professional. I am curious about a few things,

1. At what point did you lean towards OR/MS (e.g. university, early/late in career)?
2. What has prepared you for your current position, whether it be academic or practitioner?
3. Which other professions have you considered in the past?

If you spoke to a layperson, could you explain what you do, and how you make a difference?

Food for thought

------------------------------
Andrew Acosta
Data Scientist
Milesius Capital Resources LLC
Chicago IL
andrew@acm.org
------------------------------

For me, getting into OR/MS was pure luck. I mean it. I was an undergraduate student in chemistry and did not enjoy working in a chemistry lab. When I heard there was a supply chain research group at our university recruiting a master's student, I applied without hesitation. I did not know what OR/MS was, except that it offers the fun of math, and I get to work in a lab without acids that burn my hand. I loved my new field and applied for a Ph.D. program to continue my academic career.

I am blessed to have my current job as an assistant professor at the MQABL (Marketing, Quantitative Analysis, and Business Law) department at Mississippi State University. What prepared me was my five years of training as a Ph.D. student at Umass Amherst and two years at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard medical school as a postdoctoral research fellow. Not everyone in our field goes for a postdoc before the first faculty job, but I have found my postdoc experience highly rewarding. I learned about teamwork, cross-disciplinary, and project management in my position while getting to know many excellent people. I highly recommend new incoming job market candidates to give it a try!

I always tell my family and friends that I have the best job in the world. I help people make better decisions by solving the math behind these problems, so they do not need to worry about any of that.

In another hypothetical life, I would become an OBGYN. Being a mother of two, I feel like greeting new lives is the most fantastic thing in this universe. In my current life, I work with a team of gynecologists to help solve medical decision problems to treat patients better. I consider that a fun way for my two lives in the parallel universes to merge.

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We Ring True!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yueran Zhuo, PhD
Assistant Professor of Business Analytics
Department of Marketing, Quantitative Analysis & Business Law
324 McCool Hall
Mailstop 9582
College of Business
Mississippi State, MS 39759
Office: 662-325-1998
Email: yzhuo@business.msstate.edu

------------------------------

OM is real. I wanted a Ph.D. in Business and OM deals with real things. Things you can touch, move, change, see. Its a lot easier to visualize a supply chain than it is an accounting system (at least for me.)

------------------------------
Kenneth Schultz
Unaffiliated
Englewood OH
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 12-10-2022 22:48
From: Andrew Acosta
Subject: What Brought You to OR/MS?

Everyone has a different path, both academic and professional. I am curious about a few things,

1. At what point did you lean towards OR/MS (e.g. university, early/late in career)?
2. What has prepared you for your current position, whether it be academic or practitioner?
3. Which other professions have you considered in the past?

If you spoke to a layperson, could you explain what you do, and how you make a difference?

Food for thought

------------------------------
Andrew Acosta
Data Scientist
Milesius Capital Resources LLC
Chicago IL
andrew@acm.org
------------------------------