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This competition seeks to reward unpublished OM research papers with a high potential or realized impact on practice.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
Zichao Luo
Guangrui Ma, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Zhenkang Peng
Ying Rong, Lehigh University
Mingyong Zhao
Finalist
Christopher Chen
Farbod Ekbatani
Fei Gao Fei
Shin Oblander
Kinshuk Jerath
Vinit Tipnis, Indiana University Bloomington
Andrew Vakhutinsky, Oracle Labs

Ruxian Wang
Ovunc Yilmaz
Zifeng Zhao
Honorable Mention
Abdul Tariq
Amira Hijazi
Keith Boell
Carri W. Chan, Columbia University
Sikai Cheng
Pascal Van Hentenryck, Brown University
Elliot Mitchell
Minje Park
David Vawdrey
Tinghan Ye, Cornell University
2023
First Place
Retsef Levi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Manoj Rajan, Rashtriya e Market Services Private Limited
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
Dimitris J. Bertsimas , Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management and Operations Research Center
Jingqi Wang
Timothy Chan, University of Toronto
Ryan Cory-Wright , Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Vassilis Digalakis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dongyang Geng
Hao Hu, Georgia Institute of Technology
Dazhou Lei
Siu Chung Leung
Sheng Liu
Rafid Mahmood, University of Ottawa
Deborah O'Connor, University of Toronto
Huiyin Ouyang
Eric Park, School of Business, University of Hong Kong, Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong
Yongzhi Qi
Timothy Rainer
Sergei Savin
Zuo-Jun (Max) Shen, University of California, Berkeley
Debbie Stone, Rogers Hixon Ontario Human Milk Bank
Sharon Unger, University of Toronto
Rachel Wong, University of Toronto
Jianshen Zhang
Ian Yihang Zhu, National University of Singapore
2021
Winner(s)
Sarang Deo, Indian School of Business
Emma Gibson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Jónas Oddur Jónasson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Mphatso Kachule, R4H Malawi
Kara Palamountain, Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management

Finalist
Sanghoon Cho, University of South Carolina
Maxime C. Cohen, McGill University
Mark Ferguson
Kris Ferreira, Harvard
Michael-Davis Fiszer, Google/Waze

Emily Mower, Harvard
Pelin Pekgun, University of South Carolina
Avia Ratzon, Google/Waze
Roy Sasson, Google/Waze

Andrew Vakhutinsky, Oracle Labs

Honorable Mention
Alison Borenstein, MIT
Omar Skali Lami, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Jiong Wei Lua, MIT
Ankit Mangal, Wayfair
Georgia Perakis, MIT/ Sloan School of Management
Stefan Poninghaus, Wayfair
Ignacio Rios, Stanford University
Daniela Saban, Stanford University
Divya Singhvi
Fanyin Zheng, Graduate School of Business, Columbia University

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