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Michael Fu, professor of management science, and Lawrence
Bodin, professor emeritus of management science, have been named as Fellows for
2008 by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences
(INFORMS). This singular honor, awarded to about two percent of the
organization’s 11,000 members, has now been held by six members of the Smith
School’s decisions, operations and information technologies department. In
addition to Fu and Bodin, Saul Gass, professor emeritus of management science;
Michael Ball, Orkand Professor of Management Science; Bruce Golden,
France-Merrick Chair in Management Science; and Dean Howard Frank are past
INFORMS fellows.
INFORMS Fellows are recognized for their significant
contributions to the advancement of the field of operations research, which uses
data and mathematical techniques to solve specific business problems. Gass, a
pioneer in the field, helped develop the technique of linear programming, a
simple but powerful tool that allows researchers to create computer programs to
model a large range of tremendously complex business problems.
Gass influenced succeeding generations of researchers at
the Smith School, including Lawrence Bodin, Michael Fu, Bruce Golden, and
Michael Ball.
Bodin consulted with major delivery companies to develop
models and algorithms to find the solution of routing problems over geographic
data bases, particularly the problems that are encountered when the solution has
to be embedded on top of a street network. The systems he helped develop are
being used by some of the major delivery companies, newspaper delivery
companies, public utilities, and sanitation companies. “I am very pleased to
have been named an INFORMS Fellow,” says Bodin. “There are only about 200 of
INFORMS’ 11,000 members who have been named INFORMS Fellows. I feel it is a
wonderful honor to be given this recognition for my accomplishments.”
Fu, who
was recently named a University of Maryland Distinguished Scholar-Teacher and
holds a joint appointment with the Institute for Systems Research and an
affiliate appointment with the Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering, both in the Clark School of Engineering, works on simulation
modeling and analysis, production/inventory control, applied probability and
qeueing theory, with application to manufacturing and finance. He is currently working with the FDIC to evaluate each of its 6,000
member banks in order to determine the level of premium to charge for FDIC
insurance. “I feel extremely
honored and grateful to be one of the 30 INFORMS Fellows selected worldwide this
year,” says Fu.
Ball, who also holds a joint appointment within the
Institute for Systems Research (ISR) in the Clark School of Engineering, works
in the area of network optimization and integer programming, particularly as
applied to problems in transportation systems and supply chain management. His
research has had a significant influence on both the policy and practice of the
Federal Aviation Administration, where his models for optimizing takeoffs and
landings at airports found an enthusiastic welcome.
Golden’s research interests include heuristic search,
combinatorial optimization, networks, and applied operations research. He
recently worked with the University of Maryland Hospital’s cardiac surgery
department to optimize the number of beds in the intensive care unit, where
there is one nurse per bed, and the remote telemetry unit, where less staff is
required. The model was able to save the hospital millions of dollars and get
people into needed surgery more quickly.
Howard Frank, who is also a member of the National Academy
of Engineering, earned his INFORMS Fellow award by virtue of research begun
during his early academic career at the University of California at Berkeley and
further explored during his subsequent career in both the private and public
sectors. His research examined the theory of large-scale network analysis and
design and the development of packet-switching, one of the key innovations that
made the modern Internet possible.
Taken together, the research represented by the Smith
School’s INFORMS Fellows show the strength of Smith’s decisions, operations and
information technologies faculty and the relevance of our research across many
industries. And it also demonstrates why the Smith School has achieved
international recognition as a research powerhouse and an influential center of
ideas and innovation. |
