Public Sector Operations Research Best Paper Award

2024 Winner(s)

Winning material: Optimizing Health Supply Chains with Decision-Aware Machine Learning

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
Click here for more information

Past Awardees

2024
Winner(s)
Francis Smart, Government of Sierra Leone - Ministry of Health and Sanitation
Hamsa Bastani, University of Pennsylvania
Jatu Abdulai, Government of Sierra Leone
Lawrence Sandi, Government of Sierra Leone
Osbert Bastani, University of Pennsylvania
Patrick Bayoh, Sierra Leone National Medical Supplies
Tsai-Hsuan (Angel) Chung, University of Pennsylvania
Second Place
Daniel Freund, Cornell University
Wentao Weng, MIT
2023
Winner(s)
Auyon Saddiq
Jingwei Zhang, University of California, Los Angeles
Sheng Liu
Honorable Mention
Claudio Lucarelli, University of Pennsylvania
Donatien Ngabo, Ministry of Health, Rwanda
Harriet Jeon , The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Hummy Song
Jean-Baptiste Mazarati , University of Global Health Equity, Rwanda
2022
Winner(s)
Alan A. Scheller-Wolf, Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University
Emily R. Perito, School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco
John P. Roberts, Division of Transplant Surgery, University of California, San Francisco
Sridhar Tayur, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business
Yanhan (Savannah) Tang, Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University

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