John von Neumann Theory Prize
The 2011 John von Neumann Theory Prize is awarded by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences to Professor Gerard Cornuejols for his fundamental and broad contributions to discrete optimization including his deep research on balanced and ideal matrices, perfect graphs and cutting planes for mixed-integer optimization. In 1977, he (together with Marshall Fisher and George Nemhauser) won the Lanchester Prize for his work on facility location. He (together with Michele Conforti) showed that a matrix is balanced if and only if every one of its submatrices is perfect (equivalently, ideal) and he (together with Michele Conforti and M. R. Rao) provided a polynomial-time recognition algorithm for balanced matrices, a longstanding open problem. Their paper containing this result earned them the Fulkerson Prize for 2000 from the Mathematical Optimization Society. In 2009 he received the Dantzig award of the Mathematical Optimization Society for his cumulative contributions to optimization.
He (together with Egon Balas and Sebastian Ceria) developed the lift-and-project method for generating cutting planes for mixed 0-1 programs. In addition, he (together with Kent Andersen and Yanjun Li) showed how the classical mixed-integer Gomory cuts can be embedded in a branch and bound framework that renders them efficient. These developments have led to the incorporation of such cuts into the branch- and- bound codes of the leading commercial solvers and have played a major role in the state of the art in integer programming during the past two decades.
In the early 2000s he (together with several of his former students) made decisive progress in proving the strong perfect graph conjecture, open for the past 40 years. It says that a graph is perfect if and only if it contains no odd hole or anti-hole (complement of a hole) as an induced subgraph. Their work has helped the team (Chudnovski, Seymour, Robertson and Thomas) who finally proved the conjecture in a 150 page paper.
Purpose of the Award
The John von Neumann Theory prize is awarded annually to a scholar (or scholars in the case of joint work) who has made fundamental, sustained contributions to theory in operations research and the management sciences. The award is given each year at the National Meeting if there is a suitable recipient. Although the prize is normally given to a single individual, in the case of accumulated joint work, the recipients can be multiple individuals.
The Prize is awarded for a body of work, typically published over a period of several years. Although recent work should not be excluded, the Prize typically reflects contributions that have stood the test of time. The criteria for the Prize are broad, and include significance, innovation, depth, and scientific excellence.
The award is $5,000, a medallion and a citation.
Past Awardees
| 2011 | Winner Gerard P. Cornuejols, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business |
|---|---|
| 2010 | Winner Peter Glynn, Stanford University Søren Asmussen, Aarhus University, Denmark |
| 2009 | Winner Yurii Nesterov, CORE/UCL Yinyu Ye, Stanford University, Department of Management Science & Engineering |
| 2008 | Winner Frank P. Kelly, Centre for Mathematical Science, University of Cambridge |
| 2007 | Winner Arthur F. Veinott, Jr., Stanford University |
| 2006 |
Winner
Martin Grötschel,
ZIB Konrad-Zuse-Zentrum László Lovász, Eotvos University, Institute of Mathematics Alexander Schrijver, CWI, National Research Institute for Mathematics & Computer Science |
| 2005 | Winner Robert J. Aumann, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Center for Rationality |
| 2004 | Winner J. Michael Harrison, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business |
| 2003 |
Winner
Arkadi Nemirovski,
Georgia Institute of Technology, School of ISyE
Michael J. Todd,
Cornell University School of Operations Research and Information |
| 2002 | Winner Cyrus Derman, Professor Operations Research, Columbia University Donald L. Iglehart, Stanford University |
| 2001 | Winner Ward Whitt, Columbia University, Industrial Engineering & Operations Research Dept. |
| 2000 | Winner Ellis L. Johnson, School of Industrial & Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology Manfred W. Padberg, New York University, Stern School of Business |
| 1999 | Winner R. Tyrrell Rockafellar, University of Washington, Dept. of Mathematics |
| 1998 | Winner Fred W. Glover, OptTek Systems, Inc. |
| 1997 | Winner Peter Whittle |
| 1996 | Winner Peter C. Fishburn |
| 1995 | Winner Egon Balas, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business |
| 1994 | Winner Lajos Takacs |
| 1993 | Winner Robert Herman, University of Texas-Austin |
| 1992 | Winner Alan J. Hoffman, IBM Philip M. Wolfe, Arizona State University |
| 1991 | Winner Richard E. Barlow, University of California-Berkeley Frank Proschan |
| 1990 | Winner Richard M. Karp, University of California - Berkeley, Dept. of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science |
| 1989 | Winner Harry M. Markowitz , Baruch College |
| 1988 | Winner Herbert A. Simon |
| 1987 |
Winner
Samuel Karlin ,
Stanford University Dept of Mathematics |
| 1986 | Winner Kenneth J. Arrow , Stanford University, Dept. of Economics |
| 1985 | Winner Jack Edmonds, University of Waterloo, Dept. of Combinatorics & Optimization |
| 1984 | Winner Ralph E. Gomory , Alfred P. Sloan Foundation |
| 1983 | Winner Herbert E. Scarf, Yale University |
| 1982 | Winner Abraham Charnes William W. Cooper, University of Texas - Austin, MSIS Department Richard J. Duffin |
| 1981 | Winner Lloyd S. Shapley , University of California - Los Angeles, Dept. of Economics |
| 1980 | Winner David Gale Harold W. Kuhn, Princeton University Albert W. Tucker |
| 1979 | Winner David Blackwell , University of California - Berkeley |
| 1978 | Winner John F. Nash, Princeton University, Mathematics Dept. Carlton E. Lemke |
| 1977 | Winner Felix Pollaczek |
| 1976 | Winner Richard Bellman |
| 1975 | Winner George B. Dantzig, Stanford University |
