Faculty

Juan Pablo Vielma has received the 2017 INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences) Computing Society (ICS) Prize, an annual award recognizing the best English-language “paper or group of related papers dealing with the Operations Research/Computer Science interface.”

Below is Vielma’s winning trio of papers:

“Mixed-Integer Models for Nonseparable Piecewise-Linear Optimization: Unifying Framework and Extensions,” Operations Research 58(2):303-315, 2010 (co-authored with Shabbir Ahmed and George Nemhauser, both of Georgia Tech).

“Modeling Disjunctive Constraints with a Logarithmic Number of Binary Variables and Constraints,” Mathematical Programming 128:49-72, 2011 (co-authored with George Nemhauser).

“Embedding Formulations and Complexity for Unions of Polyhedra,” forthcoming in Management Science, 2017.

The award was presented in October at the INFORMS Computing Society Business Meeting during the 2017 INFORMS Annual Meeting in Houston.

Juan Pablo Vielma is a 2017 recipient of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers in the early stages of their independent research careers, in recognition of “their pursuit of innovative research at the frontiers of science and technology and their commitment to community service.” Vielma was nominated by the National Science Foundation for this award, which has been coordinated annually since 1996 by the Office of Science and Technology Policy within the Executive Office of the President.

The award was announced in January last year by the White House and conferred by then-President Obama, who praised the “impactful work” of award recipients. “These innovators are working to help keep the United States on the cutting edge, showing that federal investments in science lead to advancements that expand our knowledge of the world around us and contribute to our economy,” Obama said.

Greg Distelhorst has won the 10th annual Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability Research Conference “People’s Choice” award, recognizing the best paper at the conference based on participant votes. Distelhorst’s winning paper, co-authored with Anita McGahan (University of Toronto), is entitled “Internal Stakeholders and Socially Irresponsible Employment:  Evidence from Exporters in Emerging Markets.” The award was presented at the ARCS conference, held this year in Cambridge at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

The Frances Perkins Center has named Tom Kochan as its 2018 Intelligence and Courage Award recipient, recognizing his outstanding work in the areas of social justice and economic security. These are causes to which Frances Perkins, the first female Cabinet secretary, as President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Secretary of Labor, devoted her career. Perkins was the author of many foundational New Deal labor and economic reforms. The award’s name derives from a 1929 speech when Perkins pledged (as a New York State Industrial Commissioner): “I promise to use what brains I have to meet problems with intelligence and courage.” Frances Perkins Center Board Member Allison Beck wrote: “Tom has dedicated his life’s work to the challenges facing working families. His research, scholarship, and teaching reflect the intelligence and courage with which Tom has always met the problems of our times.”

Thomas Kochan is the first-ever winner of the International Labour and Employment Relations Association Academic Excellence Award. This award, which will be given every three years, was created to recognize outstanding academic achievements in the field of labor and employment relations. The award selection committee, comprised of distinguished scholars from around the world, selected Kochan in recognition of his lifelong contributions to the field.

Greg Distelhorst has won the 2018 Dorothy Day Award for Outstanding Labor Research from the American Political Science Association (APSA) Labor Politics Related Group. This award recognizes the best paper presented on any panel at the prior year’s APSA Annual Meeting that contributed to labor scholarship.

Distelhorst’s winning paper, co-authored with Rick Locke (Brown University; formerly MIT), is entitled “Does Compliance Pay?  Social Standards and Firm-Level Trade” (American Journal of Political Science, July 2018, 62:3, 695-711). The two authors summarized the paper in a short blog entry.