In at the Deep End! - Reflections on a Lifetime of OR Practice

Brief Bio
Sue started her OR career in 1970 in the Naval Operational Studies department of the Ministry of Defence in London after acquiring a Physics degree at London University. After 4 years she moved on promotion to the Metropolitan Police where she stayed for 28 years, moving from Senior Scientific Officer to Director of Consultancy and Information Services. She studied part time for an MSc in OR & Statistics in the early 1970s giving her a good basic grounding in OR. Projects for the Met included planning for the conversion of some 4.5m criminal records to microfiche; devising the Force’s first Information Strategy ; and numerous analytical studies from evaluating police schemes to using MCDA for equipment selection. Her department at one time employed some 40 consultancy staff including police officers, psychologists, OR analysts, O&M officers, and work study officers, and several hundred Crime Statistics clerks and analysts.  In 2003 she became an independent OR consultant, and has carried out a range of interesting assignments from devising risk management plans to efficiency studies. She regularly supervises MSc students at the London School of Economics during their summer industrial projects, which helps her maintain links with academia, and she organises meetings for the UK OR Society’s Criminal Justice special interest group. Sue was President of the UK ORS from 2008-9 and Vice President of IFORS from 2013-15, where she chaired the Developing Countries committee. She is keen to ensure the spread of practical OR methods across the world and to involve students in real projects for industry, government and commerce.

 

 

Combinatorial Design of Machines and Machining Lines - New Application Domain for OR

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Combinatorial Design of Machines and Machining Lines - New Application Domain for OR

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The Use of Optimization to Determine Policy Decisions and Auction Design for a U.S. Multi-billion Dollar Spectrum Auction

Brief Bio
Karla Hoffman is a Professor in the Systems Engineering and Operations Research Department of the School of Information Technology and Engineering of George Mason University where she served as Chair for five years ending in 2001. Previously, she worked as a mathematician in the Operations Research Department of the Center for Applied Mathematics of the National Institute of Standards and Technology where she served as a senior consultant to a variety of government agencies.  She received her BS in mathematics from Rutgers University in1969, and an M.B.A. and a D.Sc. in Operations Research from the George Washington University in 1971 and 1975, respectively.Awards: National Institute of Standards and technology (NIST) Applied Research Award, Commerce Department Silver Medal, George Mason University's Distinguished Faculty Award, The Volgenau School of Engineering Distinguished Research Award, and the Institute of Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) Kimball Medal and Harvey Greenberg Service Award. She is an honorary member of Omega Rho, and is a Fellow of the Institute of Operations Research and the Management Sciences. Professional Activities: Dr. Hoffman served as President of INFORMS in 1999 and served for three years on the Administrative Council of the International Federation of Operations Research Societies (IFORS) as the Vice President of the North American Operations Research Societies. She has served on the Boards of INFORMS, The Operations Research Society of America (ORSA), and The Mathematical Programming Society. She has served as Treasurer and Secretary of the Parkinson Foundation of the National Capital Area. Research Areas: Dr. Hoffman's primary areas of research are combinatorial optimization and auction research. She consults to the Federal Communication Commission on auction design and testing. She has consulted to a variety of corporations on the routing and scheduling of ships, trucks and buses. She has consulted to U.S. Airways, Delta Airlines, Northwest Airlines, and American Airlines on fleet assignment and crew-scheduling problems. She has worked with the Disney Corporation and Florida Rock Industries on real-time scheduling. She has served as a consultant on combinatorial optimization problems for telecommunications, transportation, postal services and military organizations and has consulted on auction design related to telecommunications. She has served on the editorial boards of: Annals of Operations Research, Computational Optimization and its Applications, Information Systems Frontiers, INFORMS Journal on Computing, Mathematical Programming, and the SIAM Journal on Optimization.