INFORMS News: Kaplan wins Expository Writing Award
Committee member Richard Steinberg (left) and INFORMS President Susan Albin (right) flank award-winner Ed Kaplan.
Edward Kaplan, professor of management sciences at the Yale School of Management, professor of public health at the Yale School of Medicine and professor of engineering in the Yale Faculty of Engineering, was named the 2010 recipient of the INFORMS Expository Writing Award. The award honors an operations researcher whose publications, over a period of at least 10 years, demonstrate a consistently high standard of expository writing.
In announcing the Expository Writing Award winner during the INFORMS Awards Ceremony held in conjunction with the Institute’s annual meeting in Austin, Texas, Prize Committee member Richard Steinberg cited Professor Kaplan as “a prolific and influential author, renowned for his ability to communicate complex ideas in a style that is simultaneously accessible to a wide audience and is lucid in explaining mathematical ideas and policy implications. Consequently, his writing has had great practical impact.”
Following are further excerpts from the citation:
Kaplan’s skill is perhaps best exemplified by his articles, “Let the Needles do the Talking! Evaluating the New Haven Needle Exchange” (Interfaces) and “A Circulation Theory of Needle Exchange” (AIDS). Both provide masterful expositions that interweave data, models, analysis, policy and implementation. All of Professor Kaplan’s writing reflects his unique charm and wit in writing about often sober, always important, subjects. This style is reflected in his choice of engaging titles, such as “Needle Exchange or Needless Exchange?”, “Nature Plays with Dice – Terrorists Do Not” and “So What If The Program Ain’t Perfect?”.
A significant dimension of Kaplan’s writing is his ability to communicate to wide range of audiences. He writes equally effectively for those working in public health (NEJM, JAMA, Lancet, Epidemiology, American J. Public Health), general science (PNAS, Science, Nature, Medicine) and specialty fields (J. Conflict Resolution, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Mathematical Biosciences, J. Sex Research, AIDS, JAIDS) in addition to readers of mainstream INFORMS journals. His ability to make operations research accessible to all of these readerships is a testament to his exceptional expository talent.
Professor Kaplan’s writing is a model of clarity, cleverness and persuasion. His has been one of the most distinctive and influential voices in the INFORMS community over the last 25 years.
