Revealing a Less-Traveled Road

Operations research (O.R.) is a “well-kept secret,” according to 2023 INFORMS President Laura Albert, even though “math models are really critical for understanding our world” and “people get really excited when they hear about what we can do ... moving from data to decisions” [1]. So why is O.R. so obscure? Perhaps its interdisciplinary nature gives O.R. so many names, which keeps the discipline hidden, even if not intentionally. There is also still a gap between the theory and practice of O.R., and it is less trivial to start using O.R. tools compared to, for instance, artificial intelligence (AI) technologies (just think about the recent success of chatbots such as ChatGPT). Or are people from the field just so shy and introverted that doing some marketing of the area would make them uncomfortable? Dimitris Bertsimas underlined that, even if we are doing better than in the past, O.R. is not well publicized, maybe for a matter of embarrassment [2]. Nonetheless, like nearly all secrets, the discovery of O.R. elicits a feeling of wonder.

“Seeing the light for the first time”

As operations researchers, we all remember well the first contact we had with O.R. or the first time we perceived its impact. This is a recurring topic across the “Subject to” podcast episodes. The first contact with the field typically happens at the university level, in bachelor’s or master’s programs such as mathematics, engineering, computer science and economics. Recalling some courses on O.R., graph theory and networks, Martin Savelsbergh said: “O.R. brought together the three elements that I care about the most: real applications, algorithms and computing, and data. All this together was phenomenal. It really clearly set the path for the future” [3].

When attending a financial engineering class about the Markovitz portfolio optimization problem, Phebe Vayanos was awed by the “idea that you can solve problems you would face in the real world with math” [4]. Becoming aware of O.R. can be akin to “seeing the light for the first time,” as Andrés Medaglia declared: “I realized that there was this tool that you were able to solve pretty much every single problem in the world, with these modeling techniques and software” [5]. Sometimes, the discovery of O.R. can be quite facilitated when studying in a place full of “big names” such as Bologna, Italy. This was the case for Maria Battarra: When studying management engineering, she attended the “Introduction to O.R.” course by Paolo Toth and an optional unit by Alberto Caprara, where “everybody was fascinated by the subject” [6]. At other rare times, one can discover O.R. all by themselves. For her master’s thesis, Sin Ho found an O.R. problem and an advisor by only searching online [7], and she developed a heuristic algorithm based on Tabu search because the book by Glover and Laguna [8] was written very well.

Nonlinear Paths

Because O.R. has multiple facets, it is not surprising that some researchers arrived in the field through unusual paths. Before his Ph.D., Martin Schmidt was more into algebra, geometry and number theory. His master’s thesis was about cryptography, combining some pure math and coding [9]. He moved to optimization by chance, because a professor was looking for Ph.D. students for an industrial project. As another example, Adam Letchford has a bachelor’s degree in linguistics and psychology, but he took some courses in statistics and computing. After two years working in the Psychology Department at the University of Nottingham, he wanted to pursue a master’s degree in psychology but instead found a webpage on O.R. by chance and went to Lancaster University for a master’s degree in O.R. [10]. Greet Vanden Berghe took two optimization courses during her master’s studies and later worked on projects for metals and materials engineers. She formally arrived at O.R. when a colleague of hers was working on a drug distribution problem. She asked to join the project because she recognized some of these modeling elements [11]. For a long time during her studies, Francesca Maggioni looked for a way to put mathematics into practice and integrate it with other disciplines. She found her answer during her Ph.D. years when she took part in a research grant to work on a real-life problem under uncertainty. She then studied stochastic programming by herself and opened the “Pandora’s box” of O.R. [12].

A Passion for Problem-Solving

Independently from the different paths, what arises in most “Subject to” interviews is the common search for concrete applications of mathematics and a passion and mindset for problem-solving, improvement and optimization [13]. Sibel Alumur Alev summarizes it as follows:

“I like optimizing things in my head, and that’s what attracted me to O.R. ... When I first learned about O.R., I was like, okay, I like this, I can use this in my life. Actually, I thought about these things without knowing the discipline or the mechanisms behind it, always trying to do things more efficiently” [14].

Some people develop O.R. skills by participating in competitions, such as Rafael Martinelli, who did a lot of training on dynamic programming, greedy algorithms and optimization problems [15].

Leaving a Mark

There is also considerable human impact present; teachers and professors can foster passion in future O.R. experts. Many researchers are encouraged to complete a degree or pursue an academic career by their professors, even when they feel hesitant about it themselves. Innovative teaching methodologies make a difference, too. For instance, assigning weekly homework, where students have to read newspapers to identify problems that could be tackled by linear programming, forces them to look for O.R. applications everywhere [16]. In this sense, as Francisco Saldanha da Gama stated, “Teaching is finding fast ways to transmit knowledge” [17].

The Italian translation of teaching is “insegnare,” which comes from the Latin “in+signāre,” namely, “to leave a mark.” The memory of our first contact with O.R. is a mark that we all are passionate about and share. Sometimes it can be love at first sight, but sometimes it does take longer to find the passion. For instance, Laura Albert was amazed only by her second course in optimization about nonlinear programming and algorithms implementation [18]. Moreover, Leandro Coelho, who completed a master’s degree in industrial engineering, was initially more into management and logistics, but not from an O.R. perspective. He did not fall for O.R. until, while looking for a Ph.D., he ended up having lunch with Gilbert Laporte, his future supervisor [19].

That Awe of Wonder

The O.R. “bug” is something we should expose students to much earlier than college years. Indeed, some of the mathematical skills required to approach O.R. are already part of a standard mathematical background for higher secondary school students [20], and several O.R. topics can be presented during regular lectures to increase motivation and interest in mathematics (e.g., the ROAR project addresses grades 10-12 [21]). O.R. is a wonderful world to reveal, as the Latin etymology of “discovery” – “discooperire” – means. And, as we have seen, there are plenty of ways to do it. However, O.R. is still a less-traveled road, but we know that can make “all the difference,” quoting Robert Frost [22]. So the open question is: How can we enhance such revelation? After all, we do not want O.R. to stay secret or invisible [23]. We would like to maximize its awareness and improve (or advance) the first contact with it, to make more and more people feel that awe of wonder as soon as possible.

References

1. Laura Albert, s.t. episode, https://youtu.be/pynQYwsqZg4?t=3652
2. Dimitri Bertsimas, s.t. episode, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cifspW4gLwA&t=2612s
3. Martin Savelsbergh, s.t. episode, https://youtu.be/V6bLerF41Io?t=1320
4. Phebe Vayanos, s.t. episode, https://youtu.be/9OtCbznTCJA?t=1421
5. Andrés Medaglia, s.t. episode, https://youtu.be/hzUNKSrr6Fc?t=1429
6. Maria Battarra, s.t. episode, https://youtu.be/qq4N74ELyfQ?t=357
7. Sin Ho, s.t. episode, https://youtu.be/G8GN9ujTcvw?t=1407
8. Glover, F. and M. Laguna, 1998, “Tabu search,” New York: Springer.
9. Martin Schmidt, s.t. episode, https://youtu.be/4adFdEbFcoc?t=1387
10. Adam Letchford, s.t. episode, https://youtu.be/wx3fDM5Mq_U?t=1313
11. Greet Vanden Berghe, s.t. episode, https://youtu.be/pXK1vCbQGNg?t=1691
12. Mary Ogidigben, Carmen Haseltine, Liz Scaria and Veronica White, 2022, “Why Operations Research? Reflecting on Our Journeys to Becoming Ph.D. students in Operations Research,” https://connect.informs.org/diversity/diversity-blog/why-operations-research.
13. Francesca Maggioni, s.t. episode, https://youtu.be/DLCIrNKAKTs?=1495 
14. Sibel Alumur Alev, s.t. episode, https://youtu.be/jwo8U5NixUQ?t=912
15. Rafael Martinelli, s.t. episode, https://youtu.be/HnygAo6XTtY?t=381
16. Andrés Medaglia, s.t. episode, https://youtu.be/hzUNKSrr6Fc?t=1508
17. Francisco Saldanha da Gama, s.t. episode, https://youtu.be/wHRr8V0gEL8?t=2723
18. Laura Albert, s.t. episode, https://youtu.be/pynQYwsqZg4?t=1662
19. Leandro Coelho, s.t. episode, https://youtu.be/-T0XfXBLzHo?t=760
20. Raffaele, A. and A. Gobbi, 2021, “Teaching operations research before university: A focus on grades 9-12,”Operations Research Forum, 2, pp. 1-32, New York: Springer.
21. Colajanni, G., Gobbi, A., Picchi, M., Raffaele, A. and E. Taranto, 2023, “An operations research-based teaching unit for grade 10: The ROAR experience, Part I,” INFORMS Transactions on Education, Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 104-120.
22. Frost, R., 2002, “The road not taken: A selection of Robert Frost’s poems,” New York: Holt.
23. Raffaele, A., 2021, “Becoming visible: Why we should be better communicators now,” Operations Research Forum, Vol. 2, pp. 1-19, New York: Springer.