We are drowning in numbers, and we no longer understand what they mean. Every day, headlines bombard us with figures meant to inform: billions in spending, trillions in debt, percentages signaling growth or decline. But for most of us, these numbers blur together. They register as “large” or “small,” but almost never as real. And that is more than a math problem. It is a civic one.
INFORMS has awarded Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) its 2026 Franz Edelman Award for Achievement in Advanced Analytics, Operations Research and Management Science, for reengineering how global cloud infrastructure is planned and delivered, applying advanced analytics and AI to orchestrate complex fulfillment decisions across its rapidly expanding data center network.
In the rush to adopt artificial intelligence, many employers are now requiring that employees use AI tools. As you’re using AI, be intentional and selective. It’s critical that you know yourself. Research published in Management Science found that AI is most valuable for people who understand their own abilities and limitations. Assess yourself, so you can factor this into your process for incorporating AI into your work.
An audio journey of how data and analytics save lives, save money and solve problems.
Jeff Cohen
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INFORMS
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INFORMS Fellow William Cook, of the University of Waterloo, calculated the best route for visiting 50,000 sites across America from the National Register of Historic Places. Traveling by foot via the shortest route, which stretches 100 times the length of the Appalachian Trail, it would take 50 years to visit each site.
With the number of natural disasters doubling globally since the 1980s, a team lead by INFORMS Fellow Anna Nagurney are researching a novel new way to improve disaster response efforts: game theory.
New research by INFORMS member Burak Kazaz, of the Martin J. Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University, shows a wine distributor can significantly improve its profits by investing in wine futures, in addition to bottled wine. The study's numerical analysis demonstrates an approximate 21 percent profit improvement, a benefit that increases as the wine distributor's degree of risk aversion increases. This study will be published in the INFORMS journal of Manufacturing & Service Operations Management.
Aviation security expert and INFORMS Fellow Sheldon Jacobson provided insight on vulnerabilities at airport checkpoints, like the kind that resulted in 11 passengers passing through an unsupervised checkpoint at JFK airport in February, all of whom reached their flights without further screening.
“The most vulnerable time for any kind of check point is in a transition period,” said Jacobson, who continued that airport security is weakest early in the morning and during shift changes.
Looks do matter. According to a new study in the INFORMS journal of Management Science, the more competent you look (based on certain facial features) the more likely you are to be a CEO. They study, which focused on male CEOs, found that faces that rated as competent-looking typically had square jaws, overall sharper features and appeared more mature.
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