Frederick W. Lanchester Prize
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2020 Winner(s)
The series of papers address a fundamental challenge in optimization under uncertainty: that the distribution of the uncertain problem parameters, which is needed to compute the expected value of the objective function, is unknown. In practice, one has access to a set of training samples from this distribution. In this case, a natural goal is to find a procedure that transforms the training data to a hopefully near-optimal decision and a prediction of its expected cost. The papers construct a data-driven approach to decisions by solving a distributionally robust optimization problem over a Wasserstein ball. These contributions are not only foundational but they have also paved the way for a new perspective on popular methods in statistics and machine learning, and as well as applications.
Purpose of the Award
2021 Committee Chair
Baris Ata
University of Chicago, Booth School of Business
e-mail: christy.blevins@informs.org
The Lanchester prize is awarded for the best contribution to operations research and the management sciences published in English in the past five years. The prize includes a commemorative medallion and a U.S. $5,000 cash award. The award is given each year at the fall INFORMS Annual Meeting.
Application Process
To be eligible for the Lanchester Prize, a paper, a book, or a group of books or papers must meet the following requirements:
- It must be on an operations research/management science subject.
- It must have been published in one of the preceding five years or, in the case of a group, at least one member of the group must have been published in one of those years.
- It must be written in the English language, and
- It must have appeared in the open literature.
The submission deadline will be June 15, 2021. The award will be presented at the 2021 Annual INFORMS Meeting.
About the Award/Namesake
Frederick Lanchester, 1868-1946
In 1896 Lanchester and his brother built the first petrol car in England. Lanchester redesigned and re-built the engine the next year into a two cylinder horizontally opposed version using his new wick carburetor design to improve both performance and speed. His true interest remained mechanical flight, which he had been studying since the early 1890s. He developed a model for the vortices that occur behind wings during flight, which included the first full description of lift and drag.During World War I he was particularly interested in predicting the outcome of aerial battles. In 1916 he published Aviation in Warfare: The Dawn of the Fourth Arm, which included a description of a series of differential equations that are today known as Lanchester's Power Laws...
Past Awardees
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