University of Cincinnati awarded the 2019 UPS George D. Smith Prize

Austin, TX, April 15, 2019 – INFORMS, the leading international association for operations research and analytics professionals, has awarded the Department of Operations, Business Analytics and Information Systems at the University of Cincinnati’s (UC) Carl H. Lindner College of Business its 2019 UPS George D. Smith Prize for an innovative curriculum, taught in the context of a true business environment, that prepares students to become effective practitioners. 

UC’s Department of Operations, Business Analytics and Information Systems is home to the UC Center for Business Analytics, which brings business organizations together with world-class, multidisciplinary groups of faculty and students, to educate and exchange ideas and best practices on how to apply analytics methods for enhancing business and organizational performance.

More than 25 leading organizations are members of the center, including Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, GE Aviation, the Cincinnati Reds and Macy’s.

“For the 50 years of its existence, the Department of Operations, Business Analytics and Information Systems has been a point of pride for the Lindner College of Business,” says Lindner’s Interim Dean Nick Williams. “We are very excited that the department has been awarded the UPS Smith Prize by INFORMS to recognize its long history of excellence in working with industry to create analytics leaders and solve relevant analytics problems.” 

Named in honor of the late UPS Chief Executive Officer – a champion of operations researchers at a leading Fortune 500 corporation – the UPS George D. Smith Prize was created in the spirit of strengthening ties between industry and the schools of higher education that graduate young practitioners of O.R. The prize is awarded to an academic department or program for effective and innovative preparation of students to be good practitioners of operations research or analytics. 

“With the growing number of operations research and analytics programs at universities around the world, the University of Cincinnati Operations, Business Analytics and Information Systems Department stands apart by partnering with leading organizations to provide its students with a unique exposure to real-world business problems in actual business settings,” said Melissa Moore, executive director of INFORMS.

The award was presented this evening at the 2019 INFORMS Conference on Business Analytics & Operations Research, an annual event that draws over 1,000 leading international professionals in analytics and operations research.

Past recipients of the award include the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; U.S. Air Force Academy; H. John Heinz III College of Information Systems and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University; Centre for Operations Excellence - Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia; MIT Leaders for Global Operations (LGO); Naval Postgraduate School; and Tauber Institute for Global Operations at University of Michigan.

For more information about the UPS George D. Smith Prize, visit https://www.informs.org/Recognizing-Excellence/INFORMS-Prizes/UPS-George-D.-Smith-Prize.

About INFORMS

With 12,500 members from nearly 90 countries, INFORMS is the largest international association of operations research (O.R.) and analytics professionals and students. INFORMS provides unique networking and learning opportunities for individual professionals, and organizations of all types and sizes, to better understand and use O.R. and analytics tools and methods to transform strategic visions and achieve better outcomes.

Visit www.informs.org or @informs.

About the Carl H. Lindner College of Business

For more than 110 years, the Carl H. Lindner College of Business has not only served as a catalyst for innovation and cutting-edge research, but its programs have also earned national acclaim in several academic areas. Through personalized career coaching and experiential learning, Lindner students graduate with a competitive advantage in the workforce and are strongly positioned to address a multitude of today’s global business challenges. In Fall 2019, the college will celebrate the grand opening of its new state-of-the-art building, providing a collaborative space for education, research and innovation to thrive.

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