Thursday, January 26, 2017

Must See New Videos of Operations Research Luminaries with Transcripts Thanks to INFORMS

One of my favorite committees to serve on for our professional society of INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences) is the History and Traditions Committee chaired by Dr. Marc Eisner of Cornell University. 

Today we heard from Dr. Irv Lustig (whose TA I was back in our Brown University days before he left to get his PhD at Stanford), and who has served on this committee for many years, that the video interviews that were conducted at our conference in Nashville, Tennessee this past November, have now been edited and posted online, along with the transcripts.

The newly published interviews are a must see (and you may wish to also read the transcripts). I am listening to one as I type this blogpost (after having already read the transcript).

And now for the list of the newly published videos:

Egon Balas (2016) Interview by Irv Lustig, November 14, 2016  (link)

Dick Larson (2016) Interview by Ed Kaplan, November 14, 2016  (link)

Benjamin Lev (2016) Interview by Jeff Camm, November 13, 2016  (link)

Chuck McCallum (2016) Interview by Arjang Assad, November 14, 2016  (link)

Stephen Pollock (2016) Interview by Mark Daskin, November 14, 2016  (link)

Lawrence Stone Interview by Allen Butler, November 13, 2016.  (link)



Irv will be posting something soon to INFORMS Connect to advertise the availability of these videos.
In his message to the committee, Irv also acknowledged many INFORMS staff members who made this possible: Mary Magrogan, Cheryl Clark, Jessica Bennett, Tracy Cahall, and Marisa Van Der Eijk for helping with the coordination of the logistics in Nashville, including securing and setting up a location for the interviews. Mary Leszczynski uploaded the videos to YouTube. Also,  Jeff Cohen, according to Irv,  found the videographer in Nashville who clearly did a great job filming the videos and editing them.

I recommend starting from the top of the list above and working your way down. You will be inspired, educated, and energized.  Professor Balas is 94 years old and his life story covers almost a century. Professor Balas is still supervising doctoral students. Professor Larson we have hosted at the Isenberg School at UMass Amherst in our UMass Amherst INFORMS Speaker Series and his advice for doing high quality research is right on target. Professor Ed Kaplan, who is his interviewer,  was our most recent President of INFORMS, and we also hosted him at the Isenberg School. It so happens that Dr. Irv Lustig spoke in our series the same semester that Professor Kaplan did.
Both the interviewees and the interviewers deserve applause for these very valuable, informative videos and transcripts.

Also, the full list of oral history interviews of operations research luminaries can be found on the INFORMS website on this link.

Yes, I am sure that my fellow WORMS (Women in Operations Research and the Management Sciences) members have noted that there are no interviews with women posted (yet). I am working on this but age is coming before gender, at least, for now.