ORMS Summer Update

Thanks for taking the time to read my second update from the president’s desk. If you read my first column, you may remember that I planned to institute two new ad hoc committees: the first on energy and sustainability, the second on humanitarian logistics and operations. I am happy to report that Michael Ferris (from the University of Wisconsin) and Pelin Pekgun (from Wake Forest University), respectively, have stepped up to lead those committees.

Given some of the global challenges we are facing, it is my view that elevating these two areas can help achieve worldwide recognition of INFORMS and both strengthen and expand 
our existing international communities as we rise to meet these challenges. Just in the last few months, we have seen the growing need for data centers (and where to place them) and the urgent need to respond to the renewed threat of Ebola without the resources we had available in the past. Both raise questions of resource allocation in the broadest sense.

Visit to Asia

In addition to these initiatives, I recently followed in the footsteps of my predecessor, Dave Hunt, who took a trip to Asia during his time as INFORMS president. I was invited to give a series of talks at National Taiwan University (NTU). I was not surprised by the vibrancy of the OR/MS community in Taiwan. Indeed, this was my second visit to spend time with my former doctoral student, Cheng-hung Wu (who is now the chair of Industrial Engineering at NTU), so I was aware of my colleagues’ technical depth and dedication to the OR/MS field. 

While U.S. manufacturing is approximately 10% of the GDP,¹ down from about 15% in 2000,² Taiwan’s GDP is more than 30% manufacturing as of 2023.^3,4 Given its prominence, it stands to reason that manufacturing research in OR/MS plays a significant role there.

My experience made me wonder if I would find a comparable focus on specific sectors of the economies in other regions of Asia, including the Asia-Pacific region, North and South America (outside of the U.S.), Africa, and Europe. At the same time, I wanted to know if there is anything INFORMS can do to encourage our international members to further expand their presence. I reached out to INFORMS’ vice president of international activities, Gina Galindo, to see where INFORMS could be most useful. Not surprisingly, Gina had similar ideas, and several others, so stay tuned.

AI Provides Solutions and Presents Problems

As an Amazon Scholar, I am amazed to see the influence of artificial intelligence on practice. It has allowed for rapid scenario testing, and menial tasks can now be passed to an LLM to improve productivity. This means that the worker’s focus can be on the critical thinking skills we teach at universities.

On the other hand, as a professor, I am keenly aware that virtually every homework or exam problem can be solved using AI with very little time and effort. This is to say that AI has made it more difficult (as yet) to safeguard against cheating. Putting aside the ethical question, a student who cheats their way to a high GPA without learning critical thinking skills is at a disadvantage when they enter the workplace. I have heard the proposed solution to return to giving each student a personalized, in-person oral exam. This I think is unrealistic at scale. It makes me think that there is no global optimal solution.

I hope you take away from this brief update that there are plenty of exciting things happening at INFORMS. We are doing our best to consider problems in several sectors where we can have 
an impact. We don’t have all the answers, but I am excited to see what next question arises. 

Have a wonderful summer!

Mark E. Lewis is the Maxwell M. Upson Professor of Engineering at Cornell University. He is the 2026 INFORMS President.

1. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025, “Manufacturing and Mining Labor Productivity,” https://www.bls.gov/productivity/highlights/manufacturing-mining-labor-productivity.htm.
2. Macrotrends, “U.S. Manufacturing Output,” https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/usa/united-states/manufacturing-output.
3. Focus Economics, “Taiwan Economic Forecasts, Data & Projections,” https://www.focus-economics.com/countries/taiwan/.