Monday, June 21, 2021

So Honored to Receive the Harold Larnder Prize from CORS (Canadian Operational Research Society)

It has been a whirlwind past two weeks, beginning with the CORS 2021 Conference, which was virtual because of the pandemic, and at which I was honored with the official receipt of the Harold Larnder Prize in a lovely award ceremony. Many thanks to the co-organizers of the conference, Professors Fatma Gzara and Timothy Chan, for the very special introduction and also thanks to the CORS President, Professor Michael Pavlin!


And, the Prize certificate arrived, just in time from Canada, so that I could share it virtually with those at the ceremony. 

The first time that the award was given was back in 1986. The full list of recipients is here and we created a collage of previous recipients, posted below.

I am only the second female recipient of this prize and now the only living one, since, sadly, Ailsa Land passed away on May 16, 2021, at the age of 93.  Quite remarkably, we honored her receipt of the Beale Medal (first female recipient of that award) with a panel on February 25, 2021, and both she and her husband were able to be virtually present. I provide a link to the video of the panel at which I had the honor of speaking and some additional information in a previous blogpost.

As part of the Harold Larnder Prize, I delivered the opening keynote talk, "Novel Supply Chain Network Models Inspired by the COVID-19 Pandemic: From Optimization to Game Theory," at the conference. I have made my slide deck available for viewing and downloading. 


A recording of my Harold Larnder Prize keynote  can be viewed here.

Some background on Harold Larnder, which I highlighted in my keynote:


The framed prize certificate now hands in my office for inspiration. Many thanks to the Canadian Operational Research Society for this great honor! Our great discipline of Operations Research was instrumental in WWII, and its rigorous methodologies and scope of applications have benefited businesses, governments, numerous organizations, including nonprofits, and societies. And, now, its creative minds and powerful tools are helping in the battles in the pandemic.