Warren Powell

Professor Warren Powell has been a prolific writer and communicator whose contributions have helped to significantly shape and advance methods of operations research, and whose writings have impacted practice and policy. Author of hundreds of scholarly articles and multiple books, his works have received well over 20,000 citations. Professor Powell’s books on approximate dynamic programming have inspired researchers and shaped the minds of many in our field. His writings have helped build a path to optimal learning methods that have become a focus of whole communities of researchers and practitioners in recent years. Through his relentless efforts to show and explain how to overcome the “curse of dimensionality,” his work has had a major impact on practice in areas ranging from freight transportation to the smart grid. His methodologies have informed research across engineering and computer science disciplines. Also noteworthy is his undying efforts to create a common language to unite works in disparate fields, a notion that no doubt recognizes that exposition is as important as the math in advancing the field together. For these many reasons, Professor Powell’s contributions to operations research have been recognized through numerous awards for his scholarly publications, including the prestigious INFORMS Transportation Science and Logistics (TSL) Society’s Robert Herman Lifetime Achievement Award. For his outstanding contributions to the INFORMS community and operations research, expository excellence in his publications making his work broadly accessible, impact, and the courage to see what is possible, Warren Powell is richly deserving of the Saul Gass Award.