O.R./Analytics at Work Blog

My mother worked for EPA for almost 20 years, instilling me with a respect for the world around me. The topic of O.R. and the Environment seemed like a natural (weak pun intended) fit. I was struck by the sentence in Patricia Randall’s blog entry, “While I am certain it is possible to include green objectives in a model, I haven’t had a client say ‘Minimize my emissions or my carbon footprint’. Or have I?”

My work in the area of biomass-for-biofuels began as an accident. I had just started working as an assistant professor at Mississippi State University (MSU), and being eager to secure research funding I responded to a call for proposals from the university’s newly founded Sustainable Energy Research Center (SERC). I didn’t get the grant, but...