Saul Gass Expository Writing Award
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2021 Winner(s)
- Michael Fu, University of Maryland, College Park
Professor Michael Fu is a very creative researcher who has extensively written for the INFORMS community during the last three decades. His 200+ writings primarily address the role of simulation in optimization methods. Building on his stellar research output, which has been recognized by five best paper or outstanding publication awards, Professor Fu has written numerous highly impactful expository tutorials.
For example, Professor Fu's 2002 INFORMS Journal on Computing article titled "Optimization for simulation: Theory vs. practice" provided the foundation for bringing together the two communities of optimization and simulation. It also addressed the question of connecting research to practice, specifically software. Due in no small part to Professor Fu's insights, every simulation software package today incorporates simulation optimization into their platform.
For his outstanding contributions to the INFORMS community, and skill at exposing to a general audience the tenets of modern optimization and simulation, Michael Fu richly deserves the Saul Gass Award.
Purpose of the Award
2021 Committee Chair
Laurent El Ghaoui (2021 Chair)
Berkeley
Please email christy.blevins@informs.org
This award recognizes an author whose publications in operations research and management science have set an exemplary standard of exposition. 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, 2021
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.
Past Awardees
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