Fabulous New Speakers Added to Our INFORMS Speakers Program!

This year, I have the pleasure of chairing the INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences) Speakers Program. Professor Tim Lowe of the University of Iowa and Dr. Les Servi of MITRE are my committee members.

Not only has the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter, that I serve as the Faculty Advisor for, availed itself of some of the wonderful speakers in this program (Professor John Birge and Professor Sheldon Jacobson, only to start) but I have also given talks through this program, since I am on the list of speakers.

I'll never forget the talk that I gave at the Dallas/Fort Worth INFORMS Chapter, with the meeting taking place at SMU, at which I arrived, after 11 hours of travel, with only 10 minutes to spare. The discussions that followed after my talk were terrific and I especially enjoyed having industry reps as well as academics and students take part. It was a wonderful experience. I have also given a talk at the Boston INFORMS Chapter (with my great host being Dr. Les Servi from Mitre), and at universities, including the University of Pittsburgh, through this special program.

Instructions as to how to request a speaker can be found on the INFORMS Speakers Program homepage. The interest this year in our program has been great from both companies and universities, especially with our energized focus on analytics.

Now, for the drumroll, I am delighted to announce that the new additions to our Speakers Program are:

Professor Aruna Apte of the Naval Postgraduate School

Professor Margaret Brandeau of Stanford University

Professor Ann Campbell of the University of Iowa

Dr. Brenda Dietrich of IBM

Dr. Radhika Kulkarni of SAS

Dr. Les Servi of MITRE

Professor Alice Smith of Auburn University

Professor Mike Trick of Carnegie Mellon University.


INFORMS will be updating information over the next couple of weeks on the Speakers Program website, so please continue to check back.

In the meantime, please feel free to contact either Barry List, the Director of Communications at INFORMS, or me, if you have any questions.