Harold Larnder Prize

Omond Solandt Award

Award of Merit

Service Awards

Practice Prize Competition

Award of Merit

Description

The Award of Merit is awarded to a present or past member of CORS in recognition of significant contributions to the profession of operational research.

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Oded Berman, Sydney Cooper Chair in Business and Technology
Joseph L. Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto

Several people wrote letters of support of the nomination of Professor Oded Berman, the Sydney Cooper Chair in Business and Technology at the Joseph L. Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, to receive the 2012 CORS Award of Merit. They commented that Prof. Berman has served as an area editor and associate editor of Operations Research, an associate editor of Management Science, and an associate editor of Transportation Science, and that he has published over 200 peer-reviewed articles, including foundational papers in the fields of stochastic facility location, flow interception, and front room / back room workforce allocation. One of his contributions to practice was to participate in a project for the US Postal Service, which “focused on scheduling of workers and workflows, was the basis for changing the ratio of full time and part time workers, a decision that is currently saving the US Postal Service hundreds of millions of dollars per year,” to quote one of the letters of support. In addition to his current appointment at the University of Toronto, Prof. Berman has been a faculty member and an area or department chair at the University of Calgary and the University of Massachusetts at Boston. Vedat Verter, who nominated Prof. Berman, writes: I would like to highlight Professor Berman’s contributions to the supervision of highly qualified people. Throughout his career he supervised (or co-supervised) 16 PhD students and 14 post-doctoral fellows, many of whom are pursuing successful academic careers. Arguably, the most prolific researcher trained by Professor Berman is Professor David Simchi-Levi, whose accomplishments need no explanation. I also recall a presentation in an ISOLDE meeting, where the authors used a location model to identify the researcher who had the highest number of distinct collaborators; and they identified Professor Berman as the most collaborative researcher in location science. Prof. Berman’s colleague Dmitry Krass writes in a similar vein: It is often said in sports that a measure of a truly great player is not just his personal achievements, but that he makes players around him better as well. By this criterion Oded has richly succeeded. The list of people who have benefitted from working with Oded is long and includes such luminaries as Ed Kaplan, David Simchi-Levi, Richard Larson, Zvi Drezner, Stanley Gershwin, and many others (I have, of course, been the luckiest, with the unfair advantage of having an office next door for the last 20 years). Beth Jewkes credits Prof. Berman with a life-changing decision to complete a PhD and to pursue research. Sapna Isotupa, whom Prof. Berman supervised as a postdoctoral fellow, comments that he always made time for his students and that he spends a great deal of time talking to students from outside North America about the research culture and the academic environment. Richard Larson comments: It has been my privilege and pleasure to have served as co-author with him on some of his many papers. Working with him is a joyous, mind-bending and productive experience. Invariably he has a way of combining often disparate ideas and approaches from the various tribal segments of OR to create a new model or algorithm that fits the need for the problem being addressed. And the tying together of usually separate lines of research is not easy, but Oded does it: in location theory, supply chains, workforce management and so much more. Ed Kaplan concludes a letter supporting the nomination of Prof. Berman with: Oded has given so much to our profession that he clearly deserves to be recognized for his efforts and accomplishments in research, practice, management, education and service. I therefore and with great enthusiasm add my support to your nomination of Oded Berman for the CORS Award of Merit. In closing, here is a quote from Dmitry Krass’ letter: I believe that we, in the Canadian Operations Research community, should be very proud to count Oded Berman among us. He is richly deserving of the CORS Award of Merit.

Previous Recipients

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2011

Eldon A. Gunn

Department of Industrial Engineering, Dalhousie University

2010

Bernard Gendron

DIRO and Director of CIRRELT, Université de Montréal

"Pour ses nombreuses contributions à l’application et à la diffusion de la recherche opérationnelle au Canada ainsi que pour les multiples services rendus à la communauté de la recherche opérationnelle au Canada et à l’étranger."

2009

David Martell

Faculty of Forestry, University of Toronto

"For his outstanding contributions to the development and application of operational research in forest management in Canada and the world, and for his many contributions to the Canadian Operational Research Society."

2008

Alain Martel

Faculté des sciences de l'administration, Université Laval

"Pour ses nombreuses contributions à l’application et à la diffusion de la recherche opérationnelle au Canada ainsi que pour les multiples services rendus à la communauté de la recherche opérationnelle au Canada et à l’étranger."

2007

Peter C. Bell

Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario

"For his significant contributions to education and the practice of Operations Research in Canada, as well as his many years of dedicated service to the Canadian Operational Research Society and beyond."

2006

Teodor Gabriel Crainic

CRT, Université de Montréal

"For his many contributions to the application and dissemination of Operational Research in Canada, as well as for numerous services rendered to the Operational Research community in Canada and abroad."

2005

Martin L. Puterman

University of British Columbia

"For his significant contributions to the theory and practice of Operations Research and for his numerous contributions to the Canadian Operational Research Society."

2004

Erhan Erkut

University of Alberta

“For his contributions to the teaching, practice, and promotion of Operational Research in Canada, and service to the Canadian Operational Research Society.”

2003

Mohan Chaudhry

Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
Royal Military College of Canada

2002

Dr. Jean-Marc Rousseau

First Vice-President
Centre for Interuniversity Research and Analysis on Organizations (CIRANO)
Montreal, Quebec.

2001

Michel Gendreau

"For his numerous contributions to the theory and practice of Operations Research in Canada, and for his significant contributions to the Canadian Operational Resesarch Society."

2000

Michael Carter

"For his many contributions to the application and dissemination of Operational Research in Canada, and for his significant contributions to CORS activities."

1999

Winfried Grassmann

"For his many contributions to Queueing and Markov Chain Theory, Application, Analysis and Optimization in Academia and Industry, as well as for numerous services rendered to the O.R. community in Canada and abroad."

1998

Maurice Queyranne

"For his many contributions to the theory and application of Combinatorial Optimization in Academia and Industry, as well as for numerous services rendered to the O.R. community in Canada and abroad."

1997

Pierre Hansen

1996

Suresh Sethi

1995

Jim Templeton

1994

Gilbert Laporte

1993

Wilson Price

1992

Dave Deziel

1991

Cecil Law

1990

Ed Silver

"Made significant contributions to CORS as a founder of the South Western Ontario Section, Council Member, Vice-President 1979-80 and President 1980-81. Co-author of the book "Decision Systems for Inventory Management and Production Planning" which had a major impact through its organization and clarification of the state-of-the-art in the field. An outstanding teacher of the theory and applications of Operational Research at the University of Waterloo 1969-81 and the University of Calgary since 1981. Made major research contributions in the area of inventory and production, in particular through the development of reasonable and implementable solutions to difficult practical problems (e.g. the Silver Meal heuristic), thus contributing to improved practice in many organizations."

1989

John Buzacott

1988

Michael Florian

1987

K. J. Radford

1986

John Roberts

1985

John Gratwick

1984

George Lindsey

1983

Omond Solandt