The 2018 Judith Liebman Awardees

The student award reception had a special taste for me because the three winners of the Judith Liebman Award are friends that I have known for years and I witnessed their hard work towards this recognition. This is an award given to student volunteers that did excellent work on behalf of INFORMS student chapters and the Subdivisions Council.

Neda Mirzaeian arrived at Carnegie Mellon when I was starting my second term as president of the student chapter. Every time I have asked for her help, she always delivered beyond expectations. That started with our social events, then new initiatives, and she naturally rose to the presidency of our chapter. When she invited Margaret Brandeau for a talk at CMU last year, she also organized a panel entitled “Women in Academia” featuring Dr. Brandeau along with other female faculty across campus.

Lauren Steimle  was the president of the student chapter at the University of Michigan and also served as the student representative in the Subdivisions Council. As a chapter president, I enthusiastically voted for her after reading her position statement, which showed to me that she had a clear vision and bright ideas to make INFORMS better for its students members.

Finally, Carlos Zetina was the driving force behind the creation and multiple initiatives developed by the Montreal Operations Research Student Chapter. MORSC encompasses several universities in Montreal, having an impressive number of members and activities, and is affiliated with both INFORMS and CORS, which is the Canadian counterpart of INFORMS.