Industrial Engineering Faculty and Students Receive Awards From INFORMS

Photos Submitted

Xinchao Liu and Guanshou Wei

The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) held its annual meeting Oct. 24-27, virtually and in person in Anaheim, California.

Guanzhou Wei, a doctoral student, received the Best Paper Award (application track) at the 16th INFORMS workshop on data mining and decision analytics. A total of 48 papers were submitted, four finalists were named, and Wei's paper was selected based on the quality of the paper and presentation.

Xinchao Liu, a doctoral student, received the Best Poster Award at the student poster competition organized by the quality, statistics and reliability section. Liu is advised by assistant professor Xiao Liu. Wei received the honorable mention for the student poster competition. Wei is co-advised by assistant professor Xiao Liu and Professor Haitao Liao. The poster competition received 12 submissions from nine universities. One winner and one honorable mention were selected.

Maryam Alimohammadi receives the WORMS Travel Award.

Doctoral student Maryam Alimohammadi received the Women in OR/MS (WORMS) Colloquium Travel Award. The award includes registration to the 2021 virtual INFORMS annual meeting, registration to the doctoral student colloquium and a year membership to WORMS. Alimohammadi was nominated for the award by her adviser, associate professor Shengfan Zhang.

The U of A student chapter of INFORMS was also given the Cum Laude Award for exceptional communications, special events and initiatives, community service and chapter operations. Despite pandemic limitations and challenges, the chapter was very active. It organized multiple virtual events, training opportunities and seminars with invited speakers from different universities and companies.

Reza Iranzad​ accepts the Cum Laude Award for the U of A INFORMS Student Chapter.

Activities of the 2020-2021 chapter were led by the following elected officers: Amin Asadi, president; Maryam Alimohammadi, vice president; Reza Iranzad, treasurer; and Daniel Lopes da Silva, secretary. The chapter was also supported by acting faculty adviser Heather Nachtmann and faculty adviser Shengfan Zhang.

In addition to these awards, Ed Pohl, department head of Industrial Engineering, was the recipient of the 2021 J. Steinhardt Prize. Read more about this prestigious honor in this October article.

The INFORMS annual meeting brings together over 6,500 people to the world's largest operations research and analytics conference. Held each fall, the meeting features more than 800 sessions and presentations, opportunities to meet with leading companies, universities and other exhibitors, an on-site career fair featuring over 100 organizations at the forefront of operations research and analytics, and other networking and educational events.