David Shmoys

Title

  • Laibe/Acheson Professor & Director, Center for Data Science for Enterprise & Society
    Cornell University

Education

  • Ph.D., Computer Science, UC/Berkeley
  • B.S.E., EECS, Princeton

Professional Experience

  • Cornell, Professor of Operations Research & Information Engineering and Computer Science: Director ORIE, 2013–2017; Full, 1997–present; Associate, 1992–1996; Assistant, 1989–1992.
  • Cornell, Director, Center for Data Science for Enterprise & Society, Cornell, 2019–present.
  • Lyft, Data Science, 2018–present.
  • MIT, Applied Mathematics, MIT, Assoc. 1989–1990; Asst. Professor, 1985–1989.

Selected INFORMS and Related Activities – Member since 1995

  • INFORMS NSF Liaison and U.S. Federal Research Engagement Committees, 2022–present.
  • INFORMS AI Ad Hoc Committee, 2024–present.
  • INFORMS Prize Selection Committees: INFORMS AMD Market Design Impact, 2025; Von Neumann 2014–2016, 2020 (Chair, 2016, 2020); Fellows 2016–2018 (Chair, 2018); Khachiyan 2018; Lanchester 2011–2012, 2014–2015 (Chair, 2015); Farkas 2011–2012 (Chair, 2012); Nicholson 2008–2009.
  • INFORMS Editorial Positions: MOR, Associate Editor, 1992–2003, 2009–2026; INFORMS J. Optimization, Associate Editor, 2017–2024; OR, Area Editor, 2018–2020, Associate Editor, 1987–1996; INFORMS J. Computing, Associate Editor, 1987–1997.

Selected Professional Honors and Awards

  • Fellow, AAAS, 2024; SIAM, 2014; INFORMS, 2013; ACM, 2002.
  • INFORMS Prizes: Kimball Medal, 2024; Morse Lecture, 2023; Khachiyan Prize, 2022; Wagner Prize, 2018; Lanchester Prize, 2013.
  • NSF PYI, 1987–1994.

Selected National Service Activities

  • Computing Community Consortium, CRA, Member, 2026-2029
  • Institute for Mathematics and its Applications, Board of Governors, 2015–2020.
  • Mathematics of the Planet Earth (2013), Scientific Advisory Committee, 2010–2015.
  • 3rd US-China CS Leadership Summit, Beijing, Workshop on Computational Sustainability, Organizer, 2010.

Selected Publications

  • “Modeling for COVID-19 college reopening decisions: Cornell, a case study,” with P. I. Frazier, J. M. Cashore, N. Duan, S. G. Henderson, A. Janmohamed, B. Liu, J. Wan, Y. Zhang, PNAS 119, 2022.
  • “Analytics and bikes: riding tandem with Motivate to improve mobility,” with D. Freund, S.G. Henderson, E. O’Mahony (Wagner Prize Paper), Interfaces 49, 310–323, 2019.

For a full list of publications, see https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=rD8a4hQAAAAJ&hl=en

Candidate Statement

I am honored to be nominated for the newly created position of INFORMS Vice President for Emerging Fields and Technologies. Several emerging technologies, most notably AI, are already reshaping today's society or are poised to make further transformative changes in the coming years. Operations research and management science (ORMS) are well-positioned to both drive these technological developments as well as to shape their effective and ethical impact on society.

INFORMS should play a leading role in placing our professional community at the forefront of this technological revolution both in terms of substance, and equally important, in the public eye. This role should be done in partnership with our neighboring technical fields and their professional societies, including SIAM, IEEE, ACM, and the CRA: INFORMS should be the leader in creating bridges for these societies to work in concert, creating new workshops, conferences, and publication streams. INFORMS is already proactive by empowering ad hoc committees for both AI and quantum computing, building ORMS visibility in these areas. The creation of this VP position marks the beginning of a greater, more strategically-positioned element to the broader portfolio of INFORMS activities. This is important within these technological developments themselves, but also in the broader imperative to shape responsible use of these innovations. Furthermore, there is a broad range of INFORMS activities that will be affected directly by this technological revolution, most notably for INFORMS activities in educating the next generations of ORMS professionals.

As technology advances, each professional discipline should evolve in reaction to and in anticipation of these changes. The current pace of change is one of revolution, not evolution. I have a longstanding interest in the emerging technologies currently labeled as "AI," building on machine learning and data science. I have advocated for two decades that Cornell ORIE should embrace this trend, for example, by recently creating a focused-elective program in Data, Decisions & AI within the Cornell ORIE undergraduate major. As the founding director of Cornell's Center for Data Science for Enterprise & Society, my vision was to build bridges in data science between OR and its neighboring fields. In my role on the INFORMS NSF Liaison committee, I helped found the AI-SCORE AI/OR summer school program, working to obtain NSF funding for the first, and ONR funding for the next three summer schools. I also led the writing of an (unfortunately unsuccessful) white-paper proposing to NSF to create a new cross-cutting program bridging AI and OR (branding it a "Learning in the Field" successor to "Algorithms in the Field" and "Formal Methods in the Field"). I also served on the ad hoc INFORMS AI Committee since its founding and contributed to the series of CRA CCC workshops connecting the OR & AI communities.

Although AI is the most prominent emerging technology, there is a tendency to think that the current transformation will dwarf future ones. Recall the first decade of the 21st century, when it became clear that the internet was the newfound engine of economic growth. Today's rapidly changing AI-driven business environment still sends a shockwave through those earlier expectations. The other recognized potential game-changer is quantum computing, but whether that delivers on its potential of transformative compute power is still unknown. Perhaps a more natural and fundamental change might come from the pervasive digitalization of images, video, and visual communication analogous to what happened with text – these are the latent questions behind virtual reality innovations. Anticipating these unknown unknowns will be critical. INFORMS and the ORMS community are strengthened by taking the lead in partnering with our neighboring disciplines and professional organizations, which I am well-positioned to do.

For more information, please visit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-shmoys-683a6a52/