INFORMS Announces UPS Prize for Operations Research

Annual Award of $10,000 Will Honor Former UPS CEO George D. Smith

CHICAGO, April 12, 2011 – The Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences (INFORMS) today announced the establishment of the annual UPS George D. Smith Prize for operations research. The prize will recognize the practical importance of operations research while honoring academic leaders who embody the beliefs of Smith, the second CEO of UPS.

The announcement of the new prize, which will be awarded to a university academic department or program each year, was made here during the Conference on Business Analytics and Operations Research sponsored by INFORMS.

All undergraduate and graduate academic programs that incorporate operations research are eligible to compete for the award. This includes programs in management science, quantitative analysis and analytics. The winning program, determined by a selection committee, will receive a $10,000 cash award.

“We are pleased to announce the creation of this award,” said Rina Schneur, president of INFORMS. “This award is to recognize outstanding academic programs that have implemented their vision of preparing students to be good practitioners of operations research and advanced analytics. The focus is on student capability to apply operations research to practical problems in industry, government or non-profit organizations.”

“UPS has a rich history of engineering and operations research, the principles of which were first introduced by our second CEO, George D. Smith,” said Randy Stashick, UPS’s global vice president of engineering. “With George’s direction, operations research became ingrained in UPS culture. This award recognizes those academic leaders who embody George’s dedication to the practice and work to ensure students’ exposure to the value of operations research and its benefits to society.”

For more information on the award or the application process, visit here.

About UPS

UPS (NYSE:UPS) is a global leader in logistics, offering a broad range of solutions including the transportation of packages and freight; the facilitation of international trade, and the deployment of advanced technology to more efficiently manage the world of business. Headquartered in Atlanta, UPS serves more than 220 countries and territories worldwide. The company can be found on the Web at UPS.com and its corporate blog can be found at blog.ups.com. To get UPS news direct, visit pressroom.ups.com/RSS.

About INFORMS

Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS®) is an international scientific society with 10,000 members, including Nobel Prize laureates, dedicated to applying scientific methods to help improve decision-making, management, and operations. Members of INFORMS work in business, government, and academia. They are represented in fields as diverse as airlines, health care, law enforcement, the military, financial engineering, and telecommunications. INFORMS serves the scientific and professional needs of operations research analysts, experts in analytics, consultants, scientists, students, educators, and managers, as well as their institutions, by publishing a variety of journals that describe the latest research in operations research. INFORMS Online (IOL) is at www.informs.org. Further information about operations research can be found at www.scienceofbetter.org.

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