M&SOM Practice-based Research Competition

2025 First Place

Winning material: Flexible Data Aggregation for Prediction and Decision Making with Contextual Information: Applications in Retailing

Purpose of the Award

This competition seeks to reward unpublished OM research papers with a high potential or realized impact on practice. Work not implemented yet may be considered, as long as potential benefits to practice can be ascertained with a high level of confidence. More generally, validity (i.e., the extent to which the results presented do or would apply in practice) is a key evaluation criteria.

Information:

To see the past winning papers, click on the author's name.

Click here for award application information. 

Past Awardees

2025
First Place
Chengzhang Li
Guangrui Ma, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Mingyong Zhao
Ying Rong, Lehigh University
Zhenkang Peng
Zichao Luo
Finalist
Andrew Vakhutinsky, Oracle Labs

Christopher Chen
Farbod Ekbatani
Fei Gao Fei
Kinshuk Jerath
Ovunc Yilmaz
Ruxian Wang
Shin Oblander
Vinit Tipnis, Indiana University Bloomington
Zifeng Zhao
Honorable Mention
Abdul Tariq
Amira Hijazi
Carri W. Chan, Columbia University
David Vawdrey
Elliot Mitchell
Keith Boell
Minje Park
Pascal Van Hentenryck, Brown University
Sikai Cheng
Tinghan Ye, Cornell University
2023
First Place
Manoj Rajan, Rashtriya e Market Services Private Limited
Retsef Levi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Somya Singhvi, University of Southern California
Yanchong Zheng, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Second Place
Gad Allon, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
Joseph Carlstein, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
Yonatan Gur, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford University
Finalist
Dazhou Lei
Debbie Stone, Rogers Hixon Ontario Human Milk Bank
Deborah O'Connor, University of Toronto
Dimitris J. Bertsimas , Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management and Operations Research Center
Dongyang Geng
Eric Park, School of Business, University of Hong Kong, Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong
Hao Hu, Georgia Institute of Technology
Huiyin Ouyang
Ian Yihang Zhu, National University of Singapore
Jianshen Zhang
Jingqi Wang
Rachel Wong, University of Toronto
Rafid Mahmood, University of Ottawa
Ryan Cory-Wright , Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Sergei Savin
Sharon Unger, University of Toronto
Sheng Liu
Siu Chung Leung
Timothy Chan, University of Toronto
Timothy Rainer
Vassilis Digalakis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Yongzhi Qi
Zuo-Jun (Max) Shen, University of California, Berkeley
2021
Winner(s)
Emma Gibson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Jónas Oddur Jónasson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Kara Palamountain, Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management

Mphatso Kachule, R4H Malawi
Sarang Deo, Indian School of Business
Finalist
Sanghoon Cho, University of South Carolina
Andrew Vakhutinsky, Oracle Labs

Avia Ratzon, Google/Waze
Emily Mower, Harvard
Kris Ferreira, Harvard
Mark Ferguson
Maxime C. Cohen, McGill University
Michael-Davis Fiszer, Google/Waze

Pelin Pekgun, University of South Carolina
Roy Sasson, Google/Waze

Honorable Mention
Alison Borenstein, MIT
Ankit Mangal, Wayfair
Daniela Saban, Stanford University
Divya Singhvi
Fanyin Zheng, Graduate School of Business, Columbia University

Georgia Perakis, MIT/ Sloan School of Management
Ignacio Rios, Stanford University
Jiong Wei Lua, MIT
Omar Skali Lami, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Stefan Poninghaus, Wayfair
2019
First Place
Christian Mandl, Technical University of Munich/ School of Management
Stefan Minner, Technical University of Munich/ School of Management
Honorable Mention
Eduard Calvo, University of Navarra/ IESE business school
Georgia Perakis, MIT/ Sloan School of Management
Kiran Panchamgam
Laura Wagner, University Cat´olica Portuguesa
Lennart Baardman
Ruomeng Cui, Emory University
Setareh Borjian Boroujeni,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Tamar Cohen-Hillel
2017
First Place
Can Zhang, Georgia Institute of Technology
Chelsea C. White III, Georgia Institute of Technology
Chenxi Zeng, Georgia Institute of Technology and Amazon Web Services
Hongmin Li, Arizona State University
Karl Kempf, Intel Corporation
Nicholas Mason, Intel Corporation
Roshan Joseph, University of Michigan
Scott Webster, Arizona State University
Turgay Ayer, Georgia Institute of Technology
Finalist
Cameron MacKenzie, Iowa State University
Chloe Kim Glaeser, University of Pennsylvania
Doug Thomas, University of Virginia
Eva Regnier, Naval Postgraduate School
Francisco Erize, Dell, Inc.
Jan A. Van Mieghem, Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management
Jason Acimovic, Penn State University
Kejia Hu, Vanderbilt University
Marshall Fisher, University of Pennsylvania
Xuanming Su, University of California - Berkeley, Haas School of Business
Honorable Mention
Joline Uichanco
Pavithra Harsha, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Shivaram Subramanian, IBM T. J. Watson Research Center