ORIE's M.Eng. Program Recognized for Preparation of Practitioners

ORIE's Master of Engineering Program has been recognized for "effective and innovative preparation of students to be good practitioners of operations research, management science, or analytics." 

In the competition for the first UPS George D. Smith prize, a Cornell team travelled to Huntington Beach, CA, to present ORIE's case to a panel of judges.  The final round of the competition was held at a conference on Business Analytics and Operations Research organized by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS).  Cornell was one of three finalists in a high competitive field of outstanding academic programs, according to the organizers of the competition.

Mark Eisner and Kathryn Caggiano - who are, respectively,  the past and current M. Eng. program directors - together with current M.Eng. students Akansha Gawade '11 and Sam Davis '07, made the case for Cornell.  They emphasized the diversity of specializations in the ORIE program, the innovations introduced throughout its 50-year history, and the integrated framework of coursework, professional development and practical capstone projects that characterizes the program.

The winner was University of Michigan's Tauber Institute for Global Operations, a joint program between Michigan's college of Engineering and Ross School of Business.  Lehigh University's Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering was the other finalist. 

For further information, including comments from Cornell's team members, see Engineering Prog. Named One of Top Three in U.S., Cornell Daily Sun, April 30, 2012.  

Under George D. Smith, the second CEO of UPS, "operations research became ingrained in UPS culture," according to Randy Stashick, Global Vice President of Engineering for the  package delivery company, which is a global provider of specialized transportation and logistics services.