Professional Colloquium

The INFORMS Professional Colloquium (IPC) offers a unique opportunity to select graduate-level analytics and operations research/management science (OR/MS) students. Held in conjunction with the INFORMS Conference on Business Analytics and Operations Research Conference in Chicago in April, the IPC is a one-day program that provides insight from the leading practitioners in the field on how to manage the transition from academia to industry.

This year marks the seventh consecutive year of the colloquium. More than 100 students pursuing master’s and Ph.D.s from more than 25 schools have participated in the program since it began. The 2011 event will be held April 10 at the Marriott Chicago Downtown Magnificent Mile.

The IPC program combines a variety of activities. Some program elements are designed to give practice-oriented students an understanding of what a typical “day in the life” is like for the many different kinds of jobs they could hold as an analytics professional. Other elements focus on the soft skills necessary to add value in the workplace. For example, for many attendees, the pre-colloquium telecon will be the first large working teleconference they will participate in. Other activities aim to kick start the professional network of the participants through INFORMS.

While the goal of providing career education and networking opportunities for students may seem altruistic, the IPC serves to maintain and increase the vitality of the INFORMS practice community. Many of today’s industry leaders in the analytics field matriculated with terminal masters degrees. For this reason, unlike other programs that are only available to Ph.D.-level students, the IPC is open to master’s-level students as well as Ph.D. students and recent graduates.

Unfortunately, university funding for student conference travel is often in short supply, especially for students who are not doing original research. Because master’s-level students rarely receive university funding for conference travel, their exposure to INFORMS conferences and other INFORMS services is limited. For many IPC attendees, their first exposure to an INFORMS meeting is the INFORMS analytics conference held in conjunction with the IPC.

IPC participants receive an INFORMS membership, and to the extent that corporate sponsorship fundraising by the IPC organizing committee permits, limited financial support is offered to help defray travel costs to the INFORMS spring conference. Through the IPC, students gain an understanding at an early, sensitive stage in their career of the role INFORMS and the INFORMS community can play in their professional life. The IPC allows them to begin to build professional connections that will help them to flourish within and contribute to the larger community of OR/MS practice.

Colloquia participants are nominated by their university departments and selected by the IPC committee. Historically, more than one-quarter of the participants have been female and nearly half international (non-U.S. origin). Roughly half of the attendees have been master’s students; the remainder has been a mix of Ph.D. and MBA students. In past years, academic institutions represented have included the University of California at Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Colorado at Denver, Naval Postgraduate School, University of Wisconsin and Texas A&M.

The IPC is organized and run by a group of active, experienced OR/MS professionals, along with a group of past IPC participants. This year’s organizing committee includes representatives from a variety of public, private and academic organizations, including Northrop Grumman, the University of Washington, PROS Pricing, IBM ILOG, SAS, IBM Research, Booz Allen Hamilton, Heinz, UPS, Monsanto and Lockheed-Martin.

From the participant perspective, the IPC has been highly successful. As one participant put it, “Attending the [IPC] was one of the top-10 experiences I have encountered during my first year as an MBA student. Not only was I a member of a select group of students invited to the conference, but I was also sought out by professionals in attendance. During the three-day event I was invited to interview with two dozen organizations. I was even invited to fly out to a corporate campus immediately following the event.”

The IPC Planning Committee is soliciting nominations for IPC 2011. Participants should expect to complete a post-graduate degree between October 2011 and August 2012, or be recently graduated. They should have a serious interest in and be qualified for entry-level work as an analytics or OR/MS professional. The committee encourages master’s-level students who have not yet decided between pursuing Ph.D.-level studies and entering the working world of OR/MS practice to attend the colloquium. Students with prior work experience will find the IPC especially valuable.

The committee encourages graduate students who have a background in analytics or OR/MS, and who have an interest in the world of analytics/OR/MS practice in any public or private sector area, to seek a nomination to the IPC from their professor or department head. The committee also strongly encourages professors and department heads of analytics, OR/MS and related fields to consider nominating top, practice-oriented students to attend the 2011 colloquium.

The committee also welcomes sponsorship from companies; 100 percent of sponsorship funds subsidize student travel. Further information about IPC 2011 is available on the 2011 INFORMS Practice Conference Web site, http://meetings2.informs.org/Practice2011/.