Parnell Earns Lifetime Achievement Award

University Relations

Greg Parnell

An industrial engineering faculty member has been awarded a lifetime achievement award for his contributions to the field of military operations research.

Professor of Practice Greg Parnell, who serves as director of the Master of Science in Operations and Master of Science in Engineering Management programs, has been selected as the 2020 recipient of the J. Steinhardt Prize from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences. The J. Steinhardt Prize is sponsored by the Center for Naval Analyses Corporation and is awarded for outstanding contributions to Military Operations Research.

His research focuses on decision and risk analysis and systems engineering. He was lead editor of Decision Making for Systems Engineering and Management, (2nd Ed, Wiley and Sons, 2011), lead author of the Handbook of Decision Analysis, Wiley Operations Research/ Management Science Series (Wiley and Sons, 2013), and editor of Trade-off Analytics: Defining and Exploring the Tradespace, (Wiley and Sons, 2017). 

Parnell is a fellow of the International Council for Systems Engineering, the Institute for Operations Research/Management Science, the Society for Decision Professionals, and the Military Operations Research Society. 

He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Decision Analysis Society Frank P. Ramsey Medal, the MORS Vance R. Wanner Award, the U.S. Army Dr. Wilbur B. Payne Memorial Award for Excellence in Analysis, the MORS Clayton Thomas Laureate, two INFORMS Koopman Prizes, and the MORS Rist Prize.

Parnell is professor emeritus at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Previously, he served as a professor of systems engineering at West Point, a distinguished visiting professor at the U.S. Air Force Academy, an associate professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, and a department head at the Air Force Institute of Technology.

He received his B.A. in aerospace engineering from the State University of New York at Buffalo, his M.E. in industrial and systems engineering from the University of Florida, his M.S. in systems management from the University of Southern California, and his Ph.D. in engineering-economic systems from Stanford University. Parnell is a retired Air Force Colonel and a graduate of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces.

About the J. Steinhardt Prize: A founding member of the Operations Research Society of America, Jacinto (Jay) Steinhardt served on the original Council and Publications Committee of the Society in 1952-53. He was elected Vice President of the Operations Research Society of America the following year and acceded to the Presidency in the Society's third year. He contributed greatly over the years to the operations research community through his work in military OR and his thoughts on the philosophy of the discipline.  ORSA merged in 1995 with The Institute of Management Sciences creating the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences.