More than 100 students earn ORIE bachelor’s degrees

Among the 6,000 students from Cornell’s 147th graduating class were more than 100 ORIE graduates on a sun-filled day at Schoellkopf Field on May 24. The ORIE graduates then moved to Sage Chapel for the formal awarding of their Bachelor of Science degrees in front of family, friends and faculty.

Laibe-Acheson Professor and ORIE Director David Shmoys reminded the graduates to stay in touch and added, “We have the highest expectations of you.” Shmoys also told the graduates that these are opportune times in the OR field because “the IT revolution has brought us this era of big data, which has made it possible to introduce the analytical tools central to operations research in an incredible range of applications where data-driven decision-making is the key element.”

Joined by Acheson/Laibe Professor Emeritus John Muckstadt, Professor Peter Jackson, ORIE’s Associate Director for Undergraduate Studies, presented student awardees and degree recipients to the audience. Jackson asked students involved in various activities to stand one group at a time: research, the Cornell Band and other musical organizations, athletics, team projects, club officers, tutoring, and community service, as well as members of the Dean’s list and the Omega Rho Honor Society. By the end, nearly every new graduate was standing, to the applause of Jackson and the audience.

Jackson then announced specific awards, most named after historic notables in ORIE. The Byron W. Saunders Award to the top students in ORIE went to Li Wang and Ariel Jiting Wang.

Li Wang, a native of Haining Zhejiang, China, earned his B.S. degrees in ORIE and Computer Science, and will be pursuing his Ph.D. in Operations Research at M.I.T. beginning in the fall. Ariel Jiting Wang, from Changchun, Jilin, China, has joined Ernst & Young in its New York City financial services office. Byron W. Saunders was the director of the School of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, which became ORIE, and later served as the Dean of the University Faculty.

The Lynn E. Bussey and Allan H. Mogenson awards are in the form of fellowships in the ORIE Master of Engineering program. Bussey, an ORIE graduate, taught engineering economics at Cornell – his text, first published in 1978, is still in use.

The Bussey prize was awarded to Ellen Patridge and Vincent Marino. Patridge, a native of Victor, N.Y., is already pursuing the Applied OR concentration. She is a summer intern doing tech consulting in the financial services division of PricewaterhouseCoopers in Boston, Mass. Ellen will complete the M.Eng. program in the fall. Marino, who hails from Limerick, Pa., will study Strategic Operations at Cornell beginning in the fall.

Oliver Lu, who received his B.S. degrees in both ORIE and Chemical Engineering, received the Allan H. Mogenson Prize, named after a 1924 Cornell graduate who pioneered the concept of work simplification. Lu, a native of Bridgewater, N.J., is matriculating into the Financial Engineering concentration in the M.Eng. program in the fall.

Following the awards announcement, Professor Jackson summoned each new graduate to the platform to receive the congratulations of the faculty and the applause of family, friends and fellow graduates.