Public Sector Operations Research Best Paper Award

2025 Winner(s)

Winning material: A Novel Adaptive Testing Scheme for Multi-disease Testing

Purpose of the Award

The INFORMS Public Sector Operations Research Best Paper Award, sponsored by the PSOR Section, recognizes research judged to be of the best quality in all of the disciplines and application areas represented within PSOR. Through this competition, PSOR seeks to build a tradition of scholarly exchange of knowledge of public policy, programs, safety, service, and needs within the entire INFORMS community.

Application Process

View information about eligibility, procedures and deadlines
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Past Awardees

2025
Winner(s)
Berk Gorgulu , McMaster University
Douglas Bish, University of Alabama
Ebru Bish, University of Alabama
Merve Bodur, University of Toronto
Finalist
Mark Brennan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Jian Cui, Amap Alibaba Group
Zhenning Dong, Amap Alibaba Group
Stephen Graves
Haoran Guo, Tsinghua University
Amrita Kundu, LBS
Sentao Miao, University of Colorado Boulder
Babacar Ndiaye, Universite de Dakar
Erica Plambeck, Stanford University
Wei Qi, Tsinghua University
Bish Sanyal, MIT
Jonars Spielberg, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Qiong Wang, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Peter Zhang, Carnegie Mellon University
2024
Winner(s)
Jatu Abdulai, Government of Sierra Leone
Hamsa Bastani, University of Pennsylvania
Osbert Bastani, University of Pennsylvania
Patrick Bayoh, Sierra Leone National Medical Supplies
Tsai-Hsuan (Angel) Chung, University of Pennsylvania
Lawrence Sandi, Government of Sierra Leone
Francis Smart, Government of Sierra Leone - Ministry of Health and Sanitation
Second Place
Daniel Freund, Cornell University
Wentao Weng, MIT
2023
Winner(s)
Sheng Liu
Auyon Saddiq
Jingwei Zhang, University of California, Los Angeles
Honorable Mention
Harriet Jeon , The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Claudio Lucarelli, University of Pennsylvania
Jean-Baptiste Mazarati , University of Global Health Equity, Rwanda
Donatien Ngabo, Ministry of Health, Rwanda
Hummy Song
2022
Winner(s)
Emily R. Perito, School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco
John P. Roberts, Division of Transplant Surgery, University of California, San Francisco
Alan A. Scheller-Wolf, Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University
Yanhan (Savannah) Tang, Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University

Sridhar Tayur, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business
Honorable Mention
Sherrie Caltagirone, Global Emancipation Network
Ruoting Li, Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, North Carolina State University
Maria E. Mayorga, Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, North Carolina State University
Osman Y. Ozaltin, Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, North Carolina State University
Margaret Tobey, Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, North Carolina State University
2021
Winner(s)
Rowan P. Clarke, Harvard Business School
Serguei Netessine, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Ioana Popescu, INSEAD
Bhavani Shanker Uppari, Singapore Management University
Second Place
Hamsa Bastani, University of Pennsylvania
Kimon Drakopoulos, University of Southern California
Vishal Gupta, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Christos Hadjicristodoulou, University of Thessaly
Pagona Lagiou, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Gkikas Magiorkinis, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Dimitrios Paraskevis, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Sotirios Tsiodras, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens - 4th Department of Internal Medicine
Jon Vlachogiannis, AgentRisk
Honorable Mention
Hamsa Bastani, University of Pennsylvania
Amine Bennouna, MIT
Joshua Joseph, MIT
Omar Skali Lami, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
David Nze-Ndong, MIT
Georgia Perakis, MIT/ Sloan School of Management
Pia Ramchandani, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Divya Singhvi
Ioannis Spantidakis, MIT
Leann Thayaparan, MIT
Asterios Tsiourvas, MIT
Emily Wyatt, TellFinder Alliance
2020
Winner(s)
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
Finalist
Shubham Akshat, Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland
 Arielle Anderer , University of Pennsylvania
Hamsa Bastani, University of Pennsylvania
Sommer Gentry, United States Naval Academy
Vahideh Manshadi, Yale School of Management
Subramanian Raghavan, University of Maryland, Robert H Smith School of Business
Scott Rodilitz, Yale School of Management
 John Silberholz , University of Michigan 
2019
Winner(s)
Daniel Adelman, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
Runner-Up
Jason Acimovic, Penn State
Karthik Balasubramanian
David Drake, University of Colorado
Christopher Parker, American University
Finalist
Yao Cui, Cornell SC Johnson College of Business
Andrew Davis, Cornell University
Edward H. Kaplan, Yale University
Scott Rodilitz, Yale School of Management
2018
Winner(s)
Fernanda Bravo, UCLA
Taylor Corcoran, UCLA
Elisa Long
Runner-Up
Wallace J. Hopp, Dept. of Industrial and Operations Engineering
University of Michigan
Soroush Saghafian, Harvard University
Finalist
Daniel Montanera , Georgia State University
Zhaowei She , Georgia Institute of Technology
Turgay Ayer, Georgia Institute of Technology
Steven Charbonneau, NCI, Inc.
James Andrew Costa, NCI, Inc.
Anthony Coudert, NCI, Inc.
Melissa Dunford, Federal Communications Commission
Gary Epstein, Federal Communications Commission
Alexandre Fréchette, University of British Columbia
Karla L. Hoffman, George Mason University, System Engineering & Operations Research Dept.
Sheldon H. Jacobson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Sasha Javid, Federal Communications Commission
Charles E. Meisch, Jr., Federal Communications Commission
Jean Kiddoo, Federal Communications Commission
Douglas M. King, University of Illinois
Evan Kwerel, Federal Communications Commission
Kevin Leyton-Brown, University of British Columbia
Dinesh Menon, Decisive Analytics Corporation
Neil Newman, University of British Columbia
Paul Salasznyk, Emprata LLC
Ilya Segal, Stanford University
Brian Smith, NCI, Inc.
Rudy Sultana, NCI, Inc.
Rahul Swamy, University of Illinois
Michael A. Trick, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business
2017
Winner(s)
Katia Sycara , Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University
Ronghuo Zheng , McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin
Tinglong Dai, Carey Business School, Johns Hopkins University
Second Place
Christine Barnett , University of Michigan
Brian T. Denton, University of Michigan
Selin Merdan, University of Michigan
David C. Miller , University of Michigan
 James E. Montie, University of Michigan
2016
First Place
Priyank Arora , University of South Carolina
Ravi Subramanian, Scheller College of Business, Georgia Tech
Second Place
Pnina Feldman
Jun Li, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Hsin-Tien Tsai
Third Place
Turgay Ayer, Georgia Institute of Technology
Qiushi Chen
Jagpreet Chhatwal, Merck Research Laboratories
2015
First Place
Milind Dawande, University of Texas at Dallas
Shivam Gupta
Ganesh Janakiraman
Ashutosh Sarkar
Second Place
Elisa Long
Eike Nohdurft
Stefan Spinler, WHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management
Honorable Mention
Zhibin Jiang
Nan Kong, Purdue University, Biomedical Engineering
Na Li
Quanlin Li
2014
First Place
Monica Gentili, Universita Di Roma, Italy
Nicoleta Serban, Georgia Institute of Technology
Julie L. Swann, Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Industrial & Systems Engineering
Second Place
Jonathan Helm, Indiana University Health
Alex Mills, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Yu Wang
Honorable Mention
Yan Deng, University of Michigan
Brian T. Denton, University of Michigan
Siqian Shen, University of Florida
2013
First Place
Itai Ashlagi , Stanford University
Peng Shi, University of Southern California
Second Place
Edieal Pinker
Tolga Tezcan
Honorable Mention
Armagan Bayram, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Weihong Hu
Mariel Lavieri, University of Michigan
Xiang Liu
Senay Solak, University of Massachussetts-Amherst
Alejandro Toriello
2012
First Place
Jérémie Gallien, London Business School
Zachary Leung
Prashant Yadav
Second Place
Timothy Chan, University of Toronto
Derya Demirtas
Roy H. Kwon
Finalist
Krishnan S. Anand, University of Utah
Francois Giraud-Carrier
Honorable Mention
Atalay Atasu, INSEAD
Michael O. Ball
Özlem Ergun, Georgia Institute of Technology
School of Industrial/Systems Engineering
Luyi Gui
Prem Swaroop, University of Maryland
Beril Toktay, Georgia Institute of Technology
2011
First Place
Carri W. Chan, Columbia University
Linda Green, Columbia Business School
Yina Lu
Second Place
Michael Fry, University of Michigan
Muer Yang
Finalist
Kathleen Hendrix, Georgia Institute of Technology
Jessica Heier Stamm, Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Industrial & Systems Engineering