Michael Gorman

The 2010 INFORMS Prize for the Teaching of OR/MS Practice is awarded to Michael Gorman. Throughout his career Michael Gorman has emphasized practical applications of OR/MS. At the undergraduate and graduate levels, Mike’s hallmark is his focus on real-world problem solving and the practice of OR/MS; he endeavors not only to teach theory, but to provide insights into how theory is successfully applied to real problems.

One of Mike’s strengths is his ability to draw on his corporate and small business experience to bring analytics to life through real applications. He utilizes his extensive contacts to find projects for students in his capstone course; these students regularly consult with clients to apply OR/MS and provide tangible value. In a typical comment, one client acknowledges that Mike’s students, “…produced better results for our hospital than some paid consultants.”

Mike’s classes are consistently rated among the highest in student satisfaction, intellectual rigor, and quantity of material learned. His students routinely express gratitude for the hands-on experiences Mike provides. One student commented, “Doctor Gorman’s teaching method fostered my interest to continue my education in the operations management field at Ph.D. level.”

From his first day as an instructor, Mike has been an effective teacher. He was given the “Rookie of the Year” Award for outstanding first year teaching as a doctoral student at Indiana University in 1989, and then won IU’s Alice French Award for outstanding Graduate Instruction in 1992. The University of Dayton recognized Mike with its Alpha Nu Omega Award for Educational Excellence in 2009. We are pleased to also recognize his efforts through the 2010 INFORMS Prize for the Teaching of the Practice of OR/MS.