The award is given once a year to recognize major contributions to the field of computer simulation that are sustained over a professional career and that fall into the area of research, practice, dissemination of knowledge, development of hardware or software, service to the profession, or advancement of the field's status.
Prof. David Goldsman (Georgia Institute of Technology), chair of the Award Selection Committee, said that Pritsker is one of the few individuals who qualifies for the award in all six relevant areas. He cited Pritsker's seminal contributions to the theory and methodology of discrete and combined discrete-continuous system simulation as well as his innovative applications of this technology to large-scale operational problems arising in a broad diversity of industrial and scientific organizations.
Most recently Pritsker led the development and use of a computer simulation model of the operations of the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS). The UNOS Liver Allocation Model (ULAM) is a detailed model of each simulated patient and donor and includes the allocation rules used for each policy evaluated. Pritsker testified on the results of the simulation analysis at both the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and Congressional hearings related to proposed transplant regulation. The Award Selection Committee considered this work to be a remarkable example of the definitive practice of system simulation in addressing ultimate questions of life and death.
Within the field of operations research and industrial engineering, Pritsker is most widely known for leading the development of a series of commercial software systems designed to support all aspects of a large-scale simulation study. The Award Selection Committee identified Pritsker's strategic vision of a family of related simulation software products as a crucial factor in the growth and maturing of the field of simulation over the past 25 years.
Pritsker has also written 12 books, 15 book chapters, and over 90 technical articles on computer simulation and other topics in the fields of industrial engineering and operations research. Pritsker's contributions to engineering education include supervising the graduate research of 18 doctoral students and over 60 master's students during the past 38 years while he was a Professor at Purdue, Arizona State, and Virginia Tech and President/CEO of Pritsker Corporation.
Beyond his technical contributions to the field of simulation, Pritsker was recognized for his distinguished service to the profession, including positions of leadership in the following organizations: Operations Research Division of the Institute of Industrial Engineers (1968-70); Board of Directors of the Winter Simulation Conference (1970-73, 1981-87); National Academy of Engineering (1985-present); National Science Foundation's Advisory Committee for the Division of Design and Manufacturing Systems (1992-93); and National Research Council's Committee on Air Force Base Level Automation Environment (1985-87). He also served on engineering advisory committees of several universities and on the board of directors of numerous engineering and operations-research-based companies.
The complete text of Pritsker's award citation can be found on the INFORMS College of Simulation website at http://www.informs-cs.org
The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS®) is an international scientific society with 12,000 members, including Nobel Prize laureates, dedicated to applying scientific methods to help improve decision-making, management, and operations. Members of INFORMS work in business, government, and academia. They are represented in fields as diverse as airlines, health care, law enforcement, the military, the stock market, and telecommunications. The INFORMS website is at http://www.informs.org.