The Farkas Prize for Mid-career Researchers
Purpose
The Farkas Prize of the INFORMS Optimization Society was established in 2006 and is awarded annually at the INFORMS Fall National Meeting to a mid-career researcher for outstanding contributions to the field of optimization, over the course of their career. Such contributions could include papers (published or submitted and accepted), books, monographs, and software. The awardee will be within 25 years of their terminal degree as of January 1 of the year of the award. The prize serves as an esteemed recognition of colleagues in the middle of their career.
Farkas' Lemma is probably the most frequently cited result in the optimization literature; it is one of the first results taught in introductory LP and OR courses, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Linear, non-linear, conic and discrete versions of Farkas' Lemma have been developed. Thus, generalizations of Farkas' results span the fundamentals of most areas of optimization. Farkas was a forerunner of optimization. As a professor of theoretical mechanics, his work represents the importance of applications as well.
The award includes a cash amount of $1,000 and a citation certificate. The award winner will be invited to give a twenty-five minute presentation at the INFORMS Fall National Meeting in the year of the award. The winner will be responsible for all travel expenses associated with the presentation of his/her contributions at the INFORMS meeting.
Who was Gyula Farkas
Read about the life of Gyula Farkas.
Winners and committee members
| Year | Winner(s) | Committee members |
| 2012 | Michel Goemans, MIT | Monique Laurent, David Shmoys (Chair), Laurence Wolsey, Yinyu Ye. |
| 2011 | Andrew Goldberg, Microsoft Research | Gérard Cornuéjols (Chair), Alexander Shapiro, David Shmoys, Stephen Wright |
| 2010 | Zhi-Quan (Tom) Luo | Gérard Cornuéjols, Jong-Shi Pang (chair), Kees Roos, Yinyu Ye |
| 2008 | Dimitris Bertsimas, MIT | A. Conn (chair), A. Ruszczynski, H. Sherali, T. Terlaky |
| 2006 | Yinyu Ye, Stanford | A. Conn, G. Nemhauser, P. Pardalos, A. Prekopa, T. Terlaky (chair) |
Eligibility
The nomination/application must satisfy the following conditions:
- The prize is awarded for outstanding contributions by a mid-career researcher to the field of optimization, over the course of their career.
- Such contributions could include papers (published or submitted and accepted), books, monographs, and software.
- The awardee must be within 25 years of their terminal degree as of January 1 of the year of the award.
- The prize may be awarded at most once in their lifetime to any person.
