Saul Gass Expository Writing Award
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2020 Winner(s)
- Sheldon H. Jacobson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Professor Sheldon Jacobson has been a prolific writer and communicator of operations research for more than 30 years. His 300+ articles include not only academic journal papers but also opinion pieces in newspapers and other public media.
His research and expositions have made significant impact on aviation security policies. The 2006 Naval Research Logistics article, "Multi-level Passenger Screening Problem for Aviation Security," the 2007 Transportation Science article, "A Sequential Stochastic Security System Design Problem for Aviation Security," and his other papers provided the theoretical underpinnings that informed the design of TSA PreCheck, the risk-based airport-security expediting system deployed by the Transportation Security Administration at airports across the United States. His work on aviation security has been recognized by the IATA Aviation Security Research Award (2002) and the 2018 INFORMS Impact Prize.
Over the decades, Professor Jacobson has dedicated his effort to draw the attention of the general public to the power of operations research and analytics for informed policy and decision making. He has written on a broad range of subjects: aviation security, healthcare, transportation, political redistricting and elections, etc. The writings of Prof. Jacobson have reached such a wide audience due to his expository talent for explaining intricate scientific theories in an intuitive way so that the policy implications become clear. As his nominators note: "Sheldon's gift for making complex technical concepts and analysis accessible to the general public is the hallmark of his writings and communications."
For the expository excellence, broad accessibility, and far-reaching impact of his work, Professor Sheldon Jacobson is richly deserving of the Award.
Purpose of the Award
2021 Committee Chair
Laurent El Ghaoui (2021 Chair)
Berkeley
Awards@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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