Arthur M. Geoffrion ’59 MIE ’61 receives the INFORMS President’s Award

At an awards ceremony in Minneapolis in October, INFORMS President Anne Robinson announced that Arthur M. Geoffrion ’59 MIE ‘61 is the recipient of the INFORMS President’s Award, which is intended “to recognize and encourage important contributions to the welfare of society by operations researchers at the local, national, and global level.”  Geoffrion is the James A. Collins Professor of Management Emeritus at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.  The award will be formally presented in February 2014.

"The 2013 INFORMS President's Award is awarded to Arthur Geoffrion for his seminal contributions in the field of management science and operations research, his leadership in connecting OR/MS theory to practice, and his influential mentoring and teaching of OR/MS professionals who continue to use his ideas and applications to impact business, government, and greater society," said Robinson, who is Director, Supply Chain Strategy and Analytics at Verizon Wireless.

The award citation read, in part, "During his nearly 50 years of teaching and his years of service to his professional society, Arthur Geoffrion showed that elegant, sophisticated techniques contribute the most when they enable decision makers in the workplace."

Geoffrion is a former president of both INFORMS and one of its predecessor societies, The Institute of Management Sciences (TIMS).  He was exposed to operations research as a Cornell junior in mechanical engineering and stayed at Cornell for a Masters in Industrial Engineering from ORIE’s predecessor department.  He has established an endowment in ORIE to support more interaction of faculty and graduate students with industry and government.