Nominations are due by May 31, 2024
Nomination materials should be submitted online via this link:
Submit Nomination for the 2024 Fellows Award
(Nomination & Reference Information will appear once logged into the software)
Policy
The Fellow Award is given to recognize sustained contributions of individuals who have demonstrated outstanding accomplishments in operations research and the management sciences (OR/MS). The contributions of a nominee in each of the following five categories will be considered:
Research - Includes theoretical, empirical, or computational innovations in OR/MS. Publications could be in INFORMS journals or non-INFORMS journals.
Practice - Includes substantial application of OR/MS to significant practical problems.
Management - Includes significant responsibility for and direction of the development and application of OR/MS techniques and knowledge within an organization of any type (e.g., academic, for-profit, nonprofit, governmental, military, health care), over an extended period of time, that have had a major impact internal and/or external to the organization.
Education - Includes activities that had significant impact on the growth and development of OR/MS education.
Service - Includes significant work over an extended period of time on behalf of INFORMS and its functions and/or significant contributions that advanced the stature and recognition of the OR/MS profession.
A nominee's record must be truly outstanding in at least one category. The nominee’s contributions should extend over a period of years (not be limited to a single result) and include some service to INFORMS. Exemplars of such contributions are given below in the procedures specifying the contents of a nomination.
The different categories are considered equivalent in importance. That is, no single category or combination of categories will be treated as more important than some other category or combination of categories.
Procedures
Eligibility
A nominee for the Fellow Award must be a current full member or retired member of INFORMS and must have been a full or retired member for at least 5 of the previous 10 years and must have been a member for at least 10 years in total.
Officers and members of the INFORMS Board of Directors, and INFORMS staff members, may not nominate, serve as references, or be nominees while holding such positions, unless the individual has been ineligible to nominate, serve as a reference, or be a nominee for five or more consecutive years as a result of this restriction. Members of the Fellows Selection Committee may not nominate or serve as references.
Nomination Materials
A nomination shall be prepared by a full or a retired member of INFORMS (the nominator) via the INFORMS Awards Program.
- The nominator is responsible for securing exactly three persons to serve as references for the nominee.
- At least one of the three references must be an INFORMS Fellow and the remaining references must be current regular or retired members of INFORMS.
- The nominator and at most one of the references can be from the same institution as the nominee.
- The individuals who serve as references must be established experts qualified to independently evaluate the nominee's contributions and clearly establish the scope and significance of the nominee's accomplishments.
Please note: A nominator to the Fellow award cannot serve as one of the three references for a candidate’s award. That is, the three persons secured by the nominator to serve as references must be distinct from the nominator.
The nomination material consists of
- A nomination letter of at most 3 pages.
- 3 reference letters, each of at most 3 pages.
- A C.V. for the nominee that highlights the accomplishments relevant for this award. The C.V. should be at most 4 pages.
- A proposed citation, of approximately 30 words, that highlights the nominee’s contributions.
The nomination letter, three reference letters, and C.V. constitute the primary documentation and provide the basis for the evaluation of the nominee. The CV/resume should highlight the contributions for which the individual is being recognized (particularly with respect to the category or categories for which the individual is nominated for having made outstanding contributions).
The proposed citation is used as the initial draft of an official citation if the nominee is selected to receive the Fellow Award. The proposed citation should avoid glorifying adjectives, emphasize the particular criteria for which the nominee’s record is most notable, and be specific. The Organizing Committee reserves the right to request or make changes to proposed citations.
The nominator should review the Eligibility rules and the Criteria for selection on the INFORMS web page to ensure that all material is consistent with the guidelines.
The Fellows Selection Committee is not responsible for developing supporting information on behalf of a nominee.
The Fellows Selection Committee may elect to consider a nomination for which the packet is not complete in overwhelmingly compelling cases (such as the nominee has been elected to a national academy).
In the event a first-time nominee is not selected, INFORMS will hold the nomination package for consideration again with next year’s pool of nominees. The INFORMS staff will contact the nominator to check if they want to update the nomination materials.
For excellence in any of the five categories, the Fellows Selection Committee needs to be provided with information that details the specific achievements and recognitions that the nominee has received.
Here are examples.
For research
Must have received national/international recognition for theoretical, computational, or applied research. Please cite specific instances of awards received.
Examples: Received one of the major INFORMS prizes that are recognized at the Awards Reception at the INFORMS Annual meeting (e.g Lanchester, Von Neumann, Morse Lectureship); received a major professional society prize, e.g., a best paper award from an INFORMS Society or from a related society in our field (e.g., IISE, SIAM, MOS); has received recognition comparable to the INFORMS Fellow award from another OR/MS-related professional society; has been the editor-in-chief of a major journal; has received recognition as a leader or pioneer in some research area, as reflected in ways such as giving invited plenaries in major conferences.
For practice
How has this nominee’s practice activities impacted an industry/corporation/non-profit organization in a substantial way? Have these activities been recognized by that institution and/or, more broadly, by a professional society, a trade association or the press? Please provide citations that verify these claims.
Examples: Received the Edelman or Wagner prizes of INFORMS; significantly contributed to an effort recognized by the INFORMS Prize; has received recognition by a major Foundation, Industry Group, or Government (e.g., Major Medical Association, U.S. Government Agency, National Academy of Engineering, National Laboratory).
For management
Has sustained leadership roles at high levels within the nominee’s organization and/or across multiple organizations, as part of an established or one newly created organization; has been recognized for this leadership; please cite specific recognition.
Examples: Served in multiple roles in the university or industry as part of management and been instrumental in advancing the role and visibility of OR/MS as a consequence; in the university setting: has altered an organization in some transformative way and been recognized for this achievement while serving as a department chair, Associate Dean or Dean and has served on multiple leadership committees at the university level; in industry: has been successful in promoting the use of OR/MS to upper management in its operational or strategic decision-making and been recognized for the impact that the OR/MS (or equivalent) group had on these decisions.
For education
Must have had impact outside of own department or group; documentation should indicate the impact that these educational activities have had on educational practice; the impact must be broader than the direct impact that teaching has had on the instructor’s students, even if students are outside of the department where the faculty member is based.
Examples: Has produced a textbook that is a “standard” text for that subfield of OR/MS; has created on-line learning courses that are used nationally and internationally, together with enrollment impact; has developed online materials that are used by thousands of students and practitioners; has publications on the teaching of OR that have, similar to other categories, been recognized for its impact on the teaching of OR/MS nationally, such as by receiving the INFORMS Prize for the Teaching of the OR/MS Practice; has been instrumental in the development and testing of learning outcomes.
For service
Has been recognized for excellent sustained service to the profession and the society through awards and/or sustained leadership to INFORMS; must have had impact in one of the major activities of INFORMS (e.g., Meetings, Publications, Subdivisions).
Examples: Received the Kimball Medal, been President and/or a VP of INFORMS, been Editor-in-Chief of an INFORMS journal; recognized for significant and sustained special interest group (SIG) service through SIG awards or SIG Fellows designation; founded a new SIG with significant impact/growth in INFORMS.
It is important to repeat that the contributions of the nominee will be evaluated in each of the following five categories: research, practice, management, education, and service, and the nominee’s record must be truly outstanding in at least one of these categories. These categories are considered equivalent in importance. The examples above should not be viewed as exhaustive criteria and are merely illustrative.
In cases in which the nominee is distinguished in practice or in management, and where much of the work is internal to an organization and is proprietary or classified, the membership requirements for references may be relaxed, if necessary. Furthermore, in this case, it is also allowed for more than one of the references to be from the organization in which the nominee is currently employed. However, this is the only exception to these rules.
Published research provides a supplementary means of supporting such assessments. For individuals whose distinction arises in areas other than research, the details are provided by the nominator and references are of paramount importance. Where the nominee's contributions are proprietary or classified, the references must have both the expertise and the access to evaluate those contributions. No proprietary or classified information shall be provided to the Fellows Selection Committee; however, the references should address the technical contributions, impact, and significance of the nominee's contributions in a non-proprietary or unclassified manner.
2024 Committee Chair
Janny Leung, University of Macau