Lindner department selected as finalist for UPS Smith Prize

INFORMS, the leading international association for professionals in operations research and analytics, has selected the Operations, Business Analytics and Information Systems Department at the University of Cincinnati’s Carl H. Lindner College of Business as one of the three finalists for the 2019 UPS George D. Smith Prize, which recognizes excellence in preparing students to become practitioners of operations research and analytics.

The University of Maryland’s Department of Decision, Operations and Information Technologies and the University of South Carolina’s Operations and Supply Chain Program - Management Science Department were also selected as finalists for this year’s award.

The winner will be announced on April 15 at the 2019 INFORMS Conference on Business Analytics & Operations Research in Austin, TX.

Named in honor of the late UPS Chief Executive Officer and a champion of operations researchers, the UPS George D. Smith Prize was created in the spirit of strengthening ties between industry and the schools of higher education that graduate young practitioners of operations research. The prize is awarded to an academic department or program for effective and innovative preparation of students to be good practitioners of operations research or analytics.

Past recipients of the award include the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; the Air Force Academy; the H. John Heinz III College of Information Systems and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University; the Sauder School of Business; the University of British Columbia Center for Operations Excellence; the MIT Leaders for Global Operations (LGO); the Naval Postgraduate School; and the Tauber Institute for Global Operations at the University of Michigan.

With 12,500 members from nearly 90 countries, INFORMS is the largest international association of operations research (O.R.) and analytics professionals and students. INFORMS provides unique networking and learning opportunities for individual professionals, and organizations of all types and sizes, to better understand and use O.R. and analytics tools and methods to transform strategic visions and achieve better outcomes.

At the Carl H. Lindner College of Business, we are committed to developing the next generation of business leaders. Through personalized career coaching and experiential learning, our students graduate with a competitive advantage in the workforce and are strongly positioned to address a multitude of today’s global business challenges. For more than 110 years, we’ve not only served as a catalyst for innovation and cutting-edge research, but our programs have also earned national acclaim in several academic areas. The best is yet to come in 2019, as we celebrate the grand opening of our new state-of-the-art building that promises to firmly position Lindner as one of the best business schools in the nation. We are Cincinnati’s extraordinary college of business.