Top 10 Opportunities from the 2022 INFORMS President

As I begin my term as INFORMS President, I look forward to the coming year with hope and cautious optimism. It appears that the COVID-19 pandemic will be with us for some time and that we need to accept this new normal. However, the past couple of years have taught us valuable lessons in overcoming challenges posed by the pandemic, and I am proud of the valuable contributions made by our members in solving critical problems resulting from it. I am confident that we will have many opportunities in 2022 to continue our mission to advance and promote the science and technology of decision-making to save lives, save money and solve problems.

I see many opportunities to serve our membership in the coming year, but the following 10 come foremost to mind. In this column, I will expand on three and briefly mention the remaining, which will be addressed more fully in later columns.

Top 3

1. Working together as one team. During my year as president-elect, I gained a deeper understanding of the backbone of INFORMS: its incredible staff led by Elena Gerstmann, the INFORMS Board and the many dedicated volunteer committees. I fully appreciate the effort needed to keep the INFORMS ship running smoothly, addressing the many unforeseen challenges that the pandemic has thrown our way. This resilience and willingness to tackle the toughest problems makes me optimistic that we will continue to succeed through the coming years.
   
   Over the past year, we have emphasized the philosophy of “One INFORMS” to ensure that cross-functional teams work together toward the common goal of serving INFORMS and its membership. We have spent time studying the different roles within the Board and the synergies that exist between various areas. Understanding these interactions increases the potential benefits of cross-functional collaboration. I look forward to making more progress on achieving a shared understanding of how best to serve our membership.

2. The all-encompassing strategic plan. I am excited by the combination of the vision and mission statements and the scope description included in the strategic plan. As more professional communities enter the world of data science, analytics, artificial intelligence, etc., we struggle with the following questions: Why is O.R. still a well-kept secret? What is unique about our profession? How can we articulate the incredible value that our community brings to the business of solving complex problems? Do we identify ourselves with specific research domains or is there an overarching principle that guides most of the research and practice in our community?
   
   The vision and mission statements focus on the key aspect of our profession: the science and practice of optimal decisions. Understanding the problem, data and tools needed, and ensuring successful implementation, are the trademarks of our profession. Not restricting the vision and mission statements to operations research and analytics alone recognizes the fact that O.R. professionals use a wide range of algorithms from multiple disciplines to solve decision problems from many domains. The scope statement captures the sentiment that we are a community of expert academicians and practitioners in a wide range of domains who deliver successful implementations in the real world. Taken together, the vision, mission and scope statements resonate deeply with me because I strongly believe that our community continues to grow by adopting a “big tent” approach and collaborating with multiple communities. The all-encompassing scope frees us from needing to chase every new discipline that rises to the top of the public perception. 

3. Advocacy and promoting our profession. Throughout my career I have been a passionate advocate of O.R. and analytics, and I am keen to continue this mission in my current role. I applaud the advocacy group for its many outreach efforts, such as media articles, podcasts, news reports and interviews highlighting the work of our members. In the coming year, I hope to be an ambassador of INFORMS to the external world and to expand our “tent” by reaching out to many audiences, including industry leaders and managers of analytics and data science departments, students entering STEM areas, funding agencies, sister societies and the general public, to highlight the value provided by our members in solving the world’s critical problems using a data- and model-driven approach.

Here, briefly, are other initiatives to explore and expand in 2022:

• Diversity, equity and inclusion. This is an institutional responsibility that involves all members and is not limited to the DEI Committee, Minority Issues Forum (MIF) or Forum for Women in OR/MS (WORMS). It must be a priority in every activity and initiative with which we are involved and should be embraced by all members.
• INFORMS’ AI initiative. This initiative is important for ensuring that the O.R. and analytics profession is recognized as a key player in the AI world. The AI-OR Workshop in 2021 reinforced our belief that the time is right for us to actively engage with computer science communities on promoting interdisciplinary collaboration between the two groups. We will continue with two more workshops in 2022 and possibly organize a hackathon with participation from both the AI and O.R. communities.
• Practice community and connections to academia. This is a multifaceted topic with many opportunities for increasing membership value to both the practice and academic communities. The Board intends to make this a special focus area in 2022 and I look forward to working with Robin Lougee, VP of Practice, as she takes the lead on this effort.
• Over the years our publications backlog has increased, partly due to our own successes! We have allocated money to reduce this backlog and need to find ways to minimize exacerbation of the issue.
• I am most excited about the return of in-person conferences because it gives me an opportunity to meet all of you. The most valuable benefit of INFORMS membership is the network of colleagues and friends, and I will take full advantage of it in 2022.
• Our healthy financial reserves have enabled us to continue many of our activities without cutbacks. I am committed to working with Elena, Dave Hunt, Darda Duncan, the Finance Committee and others to ensure that we can turn the corner on finances as we come out of the pandemic.
• Brave new world. The numerous challenges caused by the pandemic have accelerated the need to be bold and innovative, as we have adopted new ways to communicate, collaborate and succeed. Can we continue to experiment with ways to involve more members of our community in the various INFORMS events and offer new products to benefit our members?

Clearly there is a great deal to look forward to in the coming year. I am honored that you placed trust in me and elected me to this position and very much look forward to 2022! I welcome any suggestions you have to help me serve you and our professional organization.