Optimal Decision Making

Every day our lives are filled with decision making, as individuals, as professionals, and as members of groups and communities that we belong to.

We are all operations researchers since survival of the fittest requires optimization and if our ancestors had not optimized we wouldn't be around today.

What never fails to fascinate me is the number of applications to which optimization can be applied to make processes and even organizations perform better.

As researchers and scholars it is imperative that we document our findings and I am delighted to report that the special issue of Computational Management Science, edited by Georg Pflug is now out and the theme is Optimal Decision Making.

This special issue, which is volume 9(2) of this journal, is the May 2012 issue. It is a collection of plenary papers from the Computational Management Science conference held in Vienna along with several invited papers. I had the pleasure of giving a plenary talk there.

The special issue has articles on optimization methodologies and applications to energy, marketing, transportation, and blood supply chains. The blood supply chain paper I co-authored with two of my doctoral students, Amir H. Masoumi and Min Yu: Supply chain network operations management of a blood banking system with cost and risk minimization. Blood is a highly perishable life-saving "product" and the optimization of blood banking processes can minimize both costs and wastes while ensuring that demand is met as closely as possible. This paper is part of a stream that we have completed on healthcare applications with the overarching theme of perishable products.

Min recently successfully defended her doctoral dissertation on time-sensitive supply chains and will be receiving her PhD with a concentration in Management Science next week at the UMass Amherst graduation ceremonies.

She will be a faculty member next Fall and will be imparting her knowledge of optimal decision making to a new generation of students.

Congratulations Are in Order!

My suitcase is packed and I will soon be off to Cornell University.

Yesterday, was one of those wonderful "academic" days.

My doctoral student, Min Yu, successfully defended her dissertation proposal, ANALYSIS, DESIGN, AND MANAGEMENT OF SUPPLY CHAIN NETWORKS WITH APPLICATIONS TO TIME-SENSITIVE PRODUCTS. Her major is Management Science and her minor is Resource Economics. She has a terrific dissertation committee. So many of her fellow students showed up to her defense to support her -- very professional and wonderful!

Min has also been selected to receive the 2011 Outstanding Doctoral Student Researcher Award, which she will receive in ceremonies at the Isenberg School next month. She is one of two recipients of the award this year.

Plus, a former doctoral student of mine, who received her PhD in 2010, Dr. Trisha "Woolley" Anderson, emailed me that she received, this past Tuesday, the John Maddux, Jr. Faculty Award from Texas Wesleyan University, where she teaches at its Business School. The award consists of an elegant glass "trophy" with $1500. It is named after the Chair of the Board of Trustees at Texas Wesleyan.

Stated on the award, "In recognition for playing a supportive, motivational, and inspirational role in the lives of students at Texas Wesleyan University."

Dr. Woolley and Min Yu are two of the Center Associates of the Virtual Center for Supernetworks that I direct.

And, while at Cornell, not only will I see many of my colleagues who are flying in to pay tribute to the legacy of Professor Walter Isard, but joining me will be Professor June Dong of the School of Business at SUNY Oswego, who is not only a former student of mine, but also an award-winning Full Professor and Center Associate!

Next week is the end of classes in the academic year, and we will be hosting our end of the year UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter party and will also be very busy with the First Northeast Regional INFORMS Conference at UMass Amherst; see the nice article in the UMass "In the Loop."