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Open bar, yummy desserts, the best cappuccino in town…  

Both Guru Banavar’s plenary on Sunday and Margaret Brandeau’s today put health(care) center stage. Exciting area to be working in these days – from cognitive computing to data-driven public health decision making, the future looks promising! Many challenges remain, however, and yesterday, several very successful researchers offered their tips for …

We did it! #informs2015 registered a new record for an ORMS conference on Twitter! In 2015 the number of tweets has reached the same order as the number of participants: 1,651 tweets in a month; 1,541 tweets for the past week; 1,074 tweets just in the last 3 days. Beyond …

When we sat down to begin scheduling student volunteers for this year’s Annual Meeting, we recognized an opportunity to use OR methods to make the task more manageable. We realized that the problem consisted of scheduling 59 students across eight shifts (two shifts per day, four days), with each student …

The vendor exhibits could sometimes be helpful for students using particular software. Last year I had some technical issues with my GAMS code and I stopped by their booth in San Francisco. They were helpful and really knew how to resolve the issue. It is a good chance to talk …

Anyone who has used any algorithm with more than a couple of user-selectable parameters knows that “tuning” those parameters can be both important and NP-weird. One of the tutorials at this year’s meeting, “Meta-algorithms: From Algorithm Tuning and Configuration to Algorithm Portfolios” (presented by Meinolf Sellmann of IBM), demonstrated several …

In addition to the great technical sessions and talks this INFORMS conference has been a truly celebratory one in which the accomplishments of members have been recognized. Below,  through photos, I highlight just some of the celebrations that I managed to attend. On Monday, the 2015 INFORMS Fellows were inducted …

One of the aspects of INFORMS conferences that I’ve been following eagerly over the last several years is the development of the mobile conference app and the effort to move to paperless programs. I’ve been a holdout for all this time, but I think I’m about to take the green …

The celebration of the winners of the 2015 COIN-OR Cup was held on Monday evening at the Field House bar on Filbert Street. This year’s winners are the developers of JuMP. The citation reads:   Congratulations to the winners! They each receive a tacky Philadelphia souvenir cup filled with COIN-OR …

This is my third annual meeting and I can tell for sure that each experience has been unique. Except for some key events (like the social-turned-into-suicidal media reception), every year I arrive with different goals and that makes me always willing to come back. It is one thing to see …