2024 Winner(s)
- Barry L. Nelson, Northwestern University
Professor Barry Nelson is an influential writer and researcher in operations research with an emphasis on stochastic simulation. His expository skills pervade his research and pedagogical contributions to simulation methodology, modeling, and applications. His three textbooks are models of expository writing. His book Stochastic Modeling: Analysis and Simulation has allowed generations of undergraduate students to master the mathematics of modeling stochastic systems. Through examples in manufacturing, service, and computing systems, Discrete-Event System Simulation examines the principles and fundamentals of simulation modeling and analysis. His graduate-level book, Foundations and Methods of Stochastic Simulation: A First Course, provides a lasting coverage of the mathematical, statistical, and computational foundations of simulation. Nelson’s expository influence has shaped stochastic simulation and has been further enhanced by his editorial work and his software, tutorials, and videos.
For his contributions to clear and concise writing, Professor Barry Nelson is hereby awarded the 2024 Saul Gass Expository Writing Award.
Purpose of the Award
Committee Chair
This award recognizes an author whose publications in operations research and management science have set an exemplary standard of exposition. A submission should focus on expository writing, not research accomplishments.
The awardee's written work, published over a period of at least ten years, should indicate (in terms of breadth of readership) an influence and accessibility enhanced by expository excellence. Criteria include the lucidity, conciseness, logic and interest of the writing at all levels, from the general organization to the details. The author must have affected, through these publications, how something is done, studied, taught, or thought about by some group within the OR/MS community.
The written work can contain any combination of practical, theoretical and pedagogical subject matter, and may be original, synthetic or historical. The corpus as a whole must be substantial in content, not necessarily prize-worthy in itself, but not trivial.
Enough of the publications in question must have been singly authored to demonstrate the awardee’s expository skill. A team of authors writing together consistently over many years may also be considered for the award.
The winner will receive $2,000 and a framed certificate that includes a brief citation at the INFORMS Annual Meeting.
Application Process
Nominations due June 30, 2025
About the Award/Namesake
Saul Gass was the 25th President of ORSA.
Dr. Gass first served as a mathematician for the Aberdeen Bombing Mission, U. S. Air Force, and then transferred to Air Force Headquarters where he began his career in operations research with the Directorate of Management Analysis, the organization in which linear programming was first developed. For IBM, he was an Applied Science Representative, Manager of the Project Mercury Man-in-Space Program, and Manager of IBM's Federal Civil Programs. He was a member of the Science and Technology Task Force of the President's Commission on Law Enforcement. He was Director of Operations Research for CEIR, Senior Vice-President of World Systems Laboratories, and Vice-President of Mathematica. He served as a consultant to the U. S. General Accounting Office, Congressional Budget Office, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and other operations research and systems analysis organizations.