Finalists announced for 2021 Innovative Applications in Analytics Award

Kinaxis, Adelphi University and the Analytics Society of INFORMS, sponsors of the Innovative Applications in Analytics Award (IAAA), announced six finalists for the 2021 competition. The purpose of the award is to recognize creative and unique application of a combination of analytical techniques in new areas. The prize promotes the awareness and value of the creative blend of advanced analytics in unusual applications to provide insights and business value. The strong slate of finalist teams will compete on April 13 during the Virtual 2021 INFORMS Business Analytics Conference. The winners will be announced at the closing plenary session on April 14.

According to IAAA co-chairs Pallav Chhaochhria, director of algorithmic trading, Citigroup, and Juan Jaramillo, associate professor of analytics, Adelphi University, the judging panel faced a difficult challenge in selecting finalists from among a large number of high-quality submissions. Finalist projects and authors of this year’s competition, in no particular order, include:

• “Operations Research Improves Biomanufacturing Efficiency at MSD Animal Health,” Tugce Martagan, Eindhoven University of Technology; Bram van Ravenstein, Oscar Repping and Marc Baaijens, MSD Animal Health
• “Personalized Recommender System Design for an Online B2B Platform,” Vishal Gaur and Xiaoyan Liu, Cornell University; Gaurang Manchanda, IndiaMART
• “Using Machine Learning to Improve Public Reporting on U.S. Government Contracts,” William A. Muir and Roger H. Westermeyer, U.S. Air Force Installation Contracting Center; Daniel Reich, Naval Postgraduate
• “Data-driven COVID-19 Vaccine Development for Janssen,” Dimitris Bertsimas, Michael Lingzhi Li, Omar Skali Lami and Hamza Tazi Bouardi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Jennings Xu, Jose Zamalloa, Amir Hashemi, Ankit Lodha, Yuqi Shang, Kris Standish, Shi-hua Yu, Levon Demirdjian, Xiaoying Wu, Sid Jain and Najat Khan, Janssen Pharmaceuticals
• “Predictive Analytics for Detection of Metastatic Cancer,” Selin Merdan, Christine Barnett, David Miller, James Montie and Brian Denton, University of Michigan
• “Using Analytics to Understand and Improve Provider Accessibility for a State Medicaid Agency,” Barry Cambron and Kumari Seetala, Alabama Medicaid Agency; Dwight Lewis Jr., Jason Parton, Matthew Hudnall, Nick Freeman, Irem Orgut, Xin Yang, Thomas English, James Cochran, Steven Samsel and Ryan Tramp, University of Alabama