Faculty

 Stephen Graves has been elected president-elect of INFORMs and will serve as its president in 2021. Graves is the Abraham J. Siegel Professor of Management and a professor of operations management at MIT Sloan, and his research focuses on supply-chain optimization, manufacturing flexibility and tactical issues in online retailing. Graves has been a member of INFORMS since he joined as a student in 1974. According to INFORMS, it is the largest international association of operations research and analytics professionals and students.

Steve Graves has received the INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences) Manufacturing and Service Operations Management Society’s 2017 Manufacturing & Service Operations Management Best Paper Award. This annual award recognizes a paper, from among those published in the prior three volumes of Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, for its contribution to the theory and practice of operations management.

The winning paper, co-authored with Jason Acimovic (Penn State University Smeal College of Business and past MIT Operations Research Center doctoral student), is entitled “Making Better Fulfillment Decisions on the Fly in an Online Retail Environment” (Manufacturing & Service Operations Management 17(1):34-51).

The award was presented at the Manufacturing and Service Operations Management Society’s business meeting during the 2017 INFORMS annual meeting in Houston.

Michelle Hanlon has won the 2020 Distinguished Contributions to Accounting Literature Award from the American Accounting Association. This annual reward recognizes “uniqueness and magnitude of contribution to accounting education, practice and/or future accounting research” from among works published 5-15 years prior. Hanlon’s winning paper, co-authored with Scott D. Dyreng (Duke Fuqua) and Edward L. Maydew (UNC Kenan-Flagler), is entitled “Long-Run Corporate Tax Avoidance” (The Accounting Review, Vol. 83, No. 1, Jan. 2008).

Michelle Hanlon has won an MIT Sloan School Outstanding Teacher Award for the 2020-2021 academic year.  Arathi Mehrotra in Managerial Communication also won an Outstanding Teacher Award.  Each year, students nominate instructors for these teaching awards and the final recipients are chosen based on the quantity and quality of their nominations. Deputy Dean Michael Cusumano thanked the winners of this year's teaching awards for "exemplifying the dedication to pedagogical excellence that is so central to our mission at MIT Sloan."

Hazhir Rahmandad has won the System Dynamics Society’s Jay Wright Forrester Award. This is the top prize in the field, given at most once annually for the best published work in System Dynamics during the previous five years. Rahmandad was recognized for his 2012 paper in Organization Science, entitled “Impact of Growth Opportunities and Competition on Firm-Level Capability Development Trade-offs.”

Fiona Murray has been appointed Dame Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (DCMG) by His Majesty King Charles III. This honor recognizes “preeminent contributions overseas and in international affairs.” A DCMG is among the most prestigious honors bestowed in the United Kingdom. 

The citation recognizes Murray “for a sustained and highly influential contribution to U.K. strategy and policy in science and technology over the past eight years as a member of the Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology”; additionally, “she has supported and enhanced the country’s reputation in this field with the United States – the U.K.’s preeminent partner in science and technology – as associate dean of innovation” at the MIT Sloan School of Management. 

This appointment was announced in His Majesty the King’s first New Year Honours List, published on December 30, 2022. Recipients traditionally receive the insignia of the Order from His Majesty or a senior member of the Royal Family at a Royal residence in the U.K., at an Investiture ceremony during the summer.

Duncan Simester, NTU Professor of Marketing, has received the 2022 INFORMS (The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences) Society for Marketing Science (ISMS) Fellow Award.  This honor recognizes cumulative long-term contribution (through research, education, service, and practice) to the mission of ISMS, which is “to foster the development, dissemination, and implementation of knowledge, basic and applied research, and science and technologies that improve the understanding and practice of marketing.” ISMS Fellows provide leadership and support for the ISMS community.

Georgia Perakis has received the 2018 INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences) Best Paper of the Service Science Section Cluster Award, an award she has won three years in a row. Finalists for this honor were selected from nominated papers in the section’s cluster of sponsored research papers and were invited to present their work in a Best Paper Award Competition session during the INFORMS Annual Meeting. The winning paper, co-authored with Tamar Cohen-Hillel (MIT ORC PhD student) and Kiran Panchamgam (Oracle RGBU (Retail Global Business Unit), is entitled “High-Low Promotion Policies for Peak-End Demand Models” (only the abstract is currently available).

Dimitris Bertsimas has won two major awards from INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences). First, Bertsimas won the 2019 John von Neumann Theory Prize for his having made fundamental, sustained contributions to theory in operations research and the management sciences. The award’s criteria are broad and include significance, innovation, depth, and scientific excellence. The prize recognizes his body of work’s contributions that have stood the test of time.

Bertsimas also won the 2019 INFORMS President’s Award, recognizing important contributions to the welfare of society.

Vivek Farias has won the 2020 INFORMS Manufacturing and Service Operations Management Young Scholar Prize. The prize is an early career  award that "recognizes exceptional young researchers who have made outstanding contributions to scholarship in operations management." Scholars of age 40 years or younger on January 31 of the year in which they are nominated are eligible for this award.