Junior Faculty Forum Paper Competition

2024 First Place

Winning material: Incentivizing Resource Pooling

Purpose of the Award

The INFORMS Junior Faculty Interest Group (JFIG) Forum invites submissions to the INFORMS JFIG paper competition. JFIG was created in 2001 to promote the career development of tenure- track faculty in INFORMS. The goals of the paper competition are to encourage research among junior faculty and to increase the visibility of research conducted by junior faculty within the fields of operations research and management science. The JFIG award committee will judge the submissions and select up to six finalists. The papers submitted for the competition will be evaluated based on the importance of the topic, appropriateness of the research approach, and the significance of research contribution.

Winners will be announced at the INFORMS Annual Meeting, where all finalists will present their research (either virtually or in-person) at a JFIG-sponsored session. The first, second and third place winners will be invited to submit their papers (if not already under review or published) to Operations Research for an expedited review that extends the review process undertaken during the competition. For the 2021 competition, $500 will be awarded for first place,$250 for second place, and $150 for third place, with the remaining finalists receiving $100 each.

The prizes awarded by the competition are intended to be a recognition for outstanding research developments. Every author listed in a paper submitted to the competition—independent of their role or involvement—is considered a contributor to the paper. Therefore, as the goal of the competition is to encourage the research conducted/directed by junior faculty, there are strict limitations regarding the eligibility of submitted papers based on the list of authors. In particular, the competition forbids the direct involvement of senior researchers on submitted papers.

Application Process

View information about eligibility, procedures and deadlines
Click here for more information


Past Awardees

2024
First Place
Chen Chen, NYU Shanghai
Pengyu Qian, Boston University
Yilun Chen, The Chinese University of Hong Kong Shenzhen
Second Place
Bhavani Shanker Uppari, Singapore Management University
Third Place
Benjamin Knight, Instacart
Dmitry Mitrofanov, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, New York University
Finalist
Xiaoyu Fan, NYU Stern
Bastián Bahamondes, Georgia Institute of Technology
Mathieu Dahan, Georgia Institute of Technology
Thodoris Lykouris, Cornell University
Zhengyuan Zhou, New York University
2023
First Place
Second Place
Salar Fattahi, University of California, Berkeley
Third Place
Andres Gomez, University of Pittsburgh
Finalist
Nikhil Garg, Stanford University
Shixin Wang, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
2022
First Place
Ningji Wei, Texas Tech University
Peter Y. Zhang, Carnegie Mellon University
Second Place
Ali Aouad, MIT
Antoine Desir, Columbia University
Third Place
Hanyang Li, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
Ying Cui, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
Finalist
Andrew Daw, Cornell University, School of Operations Research and Information Engineering
Daan Rutten, Georgia Institute of Technology
Debankur Mukherjee, Georgia Institute of Technology
Karmel S. Shehadeh, Lehigh University
Man Yiu Tsang, Lehigh University
2021
First Place
Second Place
Bradley Sturt, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Third Place
Karthyek Murthy, Singapore University of Technology and Design
Finalist
Fasheng Xu, Syracuse University, Whitman School of Management
Cristóbal Guzmán , Catholic University of Chile
Digvijay Boob , Georgia Institute of Technology
Hrayer Aprahamian, Texas A&M University
2020
First Place
Adam Elmachtoub, Columbia
Paul Grigas, UC Berkeley
Rui Gao, UT Austin
Second Place
Siva Theja Maguluri, Georgia Tech
Honorable Mention
Eunhye Song , Penn State
Jing Dong, Columbia
Mingbin Ben Feng , Waterloo
2019
First Place
Ruiwei Jiang, University of Florida
Second Place
Ruomeng Cui, Emory University
Third Place
Diana Negoescu, Princeton University
Joel Goh, Harvard Business School
Sze-chuan Suen, University of Southern California
Honorable Mention
Austin Buchanan , Oklahoma State University
Jose Walteros , University at Buffalo
Xi Chen , New York University
Yining Wang, University of Florida
Yuan Zhou, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
2018
Winner(s)
Weijun Xie, Virginia Tech
First Place
He Wang, Georgia Institute of Technology
Second Place
Nathan Kallus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Honorable Mention
Andres Gomez, University of Pittsburgh
Gah-Yi Ban, University of Maryland
N. Bora Keskin, Duke University
Santiago Balseiro, Columbia University
Yonatan Gur, Columbia University
2017
First Place
Krishnamurthy Iyer , Cornell University
Second Place
Velibor Misic, University of California Los Angeles
Third Place
Cong Shi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Yiwei Chen, Singapore University of Technology and Design
Honorable Mention
Johanna Mathieu, University of Michigan
Ruiwei Jiang, University of Florida
Shipra Agrawal, Columbia University
2016
First Place
Daniel Russo, Stanford University
Yunan Liu, North Carolina State University
Second Place
Henry Lam, Columbia University
2015
First Place
Juan Pablo Vielma, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Second Place
David Goldberg, Cornell University
Linwei Xin, University of Chicago
Third Place
Shuangchi He, National University of Singapore
Honorable Mention
Erick Moreno Centeno, Texas A&M University
Rouba Ibrahim, University College London
Soroush Saghafian, Harvard University
2014
First Place
Fatma Kılınç-Karzan, Carnegie Mellon University
Sercan Yıldız, Carnegie Mellon University
Second Place
Itai Ashlagi , Stanford University
Jacob Leshno, Columbia University
Yash Kanoria, Columbia University
Third Place
Xu Andy Sun, IBM T. J. Watson Research Center
Honorable Mention
Guodong Pang, Pennsylvania State University
Ilya O. Ryzhov, University of Maryland
Ming Hu, University of Toronto
Yi Yang, Zhejiang University
2013
First Place
Dan Iancu, Stanford University
Nikolaos Trichakis, Massachussetts Institute of Technology
Second Place
Denis Saure, University of Pittsburgh
Juan Pablo Vielma, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Sajad Modaresi, Duke University
Third Place
Nan Liu, Columbia University
Finalist
Alexander Nikolaev, University at Buffalo
John Gunnar Carlsson, University of Minnesota
Lei Sun, University at Buffalo
Peter Frazier, Princeton University
2012
First Place
Guanghui Lan, Georgia Institute of Technology
Saeed Ghadimi, University of Florida
Second Place
Carri W. Chan, Columbia University
Gabriel Escobar, Kaiser Permanente Northern California
Galit Yom-Tov, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
Finalist
Dali Zhang, Sing Health
Diego A. Morán, Georgia Institute of Technology
Henry Lam, Columbia University
James Luedtke, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Santanu S. Dey, Georgia Institute of Technology
Sujin Kim, National University of Singapore
Yibo Ji, National University of Singapore
2011
First Place
Ciamac C. Moallemi, Columbia University
Vijay V. Desai, Columbia University
Vivek Farias, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Second Place
Saravanan Kesavan, University of North Carolina
Vidya Mani, Pennsylvania State University
Third Place
Elena Belavina, INSEAD, France
Karan Girotra, INSEAD, France
2010
First Place
Felipe Caro, UCLA
Second Place
Ying-Ju Chen, University of California-Berkeley
Third Place
Achal Bassamboo, Northwestern University
Ramandeep Randhawa, University of Southern California
Finalist
Daniel Dadush, Georgia Institute of Technology
Jiaqiao Hu, State University of New York-Stony Brook
Jingchen Liu, Columbia University
Jose Blanchet, Columbia University
Juan Pablo Vielma, University of Pittsburgh
Santanu Dey, Purdue University
2009
First Place
Lauren Xiaoyuan Lu, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Qi Feng, University of Texas-Austin
Second Place
Denis Saure, University of Pittsburgh
Gabriel Weintraub, Stanford University
Vivek Farias, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Third Place
Simge Kucukyavuz, Ohio State University
Finalist
Anton Ovchinnikov, Queen's University
Goker Aydin, Indiana University Bloomington
Jose R. Correa, Universidad de Chile
Krishnan S. Anand, University of Utah
Mehmet Fazil Pac, University of Pennsylvania
Nicolas E. Stier-Moses, Columbia University
Nicolas Figueroa, Universidad de Chile
Senthil Veeraraghavan, University of Pennsylvania
Serhan Ziya, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
2008
First Place
Raghu Pasupathy, Virginia Tech
Second Place
Oguzhan Alagoz, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Finalist
Kartik Hosanagar, University of Pennsylvania
Wei-yu Kevin Chiang, City University of Hong Kong
Xin Chen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2007
First Place
David B. Brown, Duke University
Melvyn Sim, National University of Singapore
Second Place
L. Jeff Hong, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Finalist
Eva Regnier, Naval Postgraduate School
Laurens Debo, Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth
Nicolas E. Stier-Moses, Columbia University
Richa Agarwal, Amazon.com
Senthil Veeraraghavan, University of Pennsylvania
Özlem Ergun, Georgia Institute of Technology
School of Industrial/Systems Engineering
2006
First Place
Itai Gurvich, Cornell University
Mor Armony, NYU
Second Place
Justin Ren, Boston University
Yong-Pin Zhou, University of Washington
Finalist
Greys Sosic, University of Southern California
Manu Goyal, University of Maryland
Serguei Netessine, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Honorable Mention
Fuqiang Zhang, University of California, Irvine
Paat Rusmevichientong, Cornell University
Tim Huh, Columbia University
Xuanming Su, University of California - Berkeley, Haas School of Business
2005
First Place
Savas Dayanik, Columbia University
Semih O. Sezer, Princeton University
Second Place
Ismael Regis de Farias, Jr., State University of New York at Buffalo
Honorable Mention
A. Gürhan Kök, College of Administrative Sciences and Economics, Koç University
Kevin H. Shang, University of California, Irvine
Mohit Tawarmalani, Purdue University
2004
First Place
Ebru Bish, University of Alabama
Qiong Wang, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
2003
First Place
I. Popescu, An SDP approach to moment bounds for distributions with convex properties
Second Place
S. Raghavan, University of Maryland, Robert H Smith School of Business
Honorable Mention