Selection committee members, verifiers, coaches, judges, and the Edelman Gala Committee all deserve thanks for the significant effort they put into making the Franz Edelman Award competition a success.
We thank this year’s members of the selection committee: Anne Robinson (chair), Layek Abdel-Malek, Susan Albin, Jeffrey Alden, Sudharshana Apte, Sharon Arroyo, Carrie Beam, Peter Bell, Rob Benson, Sudip Bhattacharjee, John Birge, Ann Bixby, Srinivas Bollapragrada, Anthony Brigandi, Bruce Bukiet, Allen Butler, Luz Adriana Caudillo Fuentes, Pooja Dewan, Kenneth Fordyce, Yanai Golany, Michael Gorman, Stephen Graves, Arnold Greenland, Sidney Hess, Yoshi Ikura, Ananth Iyer, Srikant Jarugumilli, William Klimack, Russell Labe, Evan Levine, Yingdong Lu, Irvin Lustig, Charles McCallum, John Milne, Sven Müller, Patricia Neri, Ranganath Nuggehalli, Anna Olecka, Pelin Pekgun, Jesse Pietz, Graham Rand, Olga Raskina, Randall Robinson, Harrison Schramm, Leon Schwarz, Kendra Taylor, Rajesh Tyagi, Andres Weintraub, and Peiling Wu-Smith.
We thank this year’s verifiers: Layek Abdel-Malek, Jeffrey Alden, Sudharshana Apte, Carrie Beam, Peter Bell, Rob Benson, John Birge, Ann Bixby, Luz Adriana Caudillo Fuentes, Michael Gorman, Arnold Greenland, Yoshi Ikura, Ananth Iyer, Srikant Jarugumilli, Yingdong Lu, Irvin Lustig, John Milne, Sven Müller, Ranganath Nuggehalli, Anna Olecka, Pelin Pekgun, Jesse Pietz, Olga Raskina, Randall Robinson, Harrison Schramm, Kendra Taylor, Rajesh Tyagi, and Peiling Wu-Smith.
We thank the coaches: Layek Abdel-Malek, Jeffrey Alden, Carrie Beam, Luz Adriana Caudillo Fuentes, Arnold Greenland, Yingdong Lu, Irvin Lustig, Anna Olecka, Ranganath Nuggehalli, Pelin Pekgun, Olga Raskina, Randall Robinson, Doug Samuelson, and Kendra Taylor.
We thank the judging panel: Anne Robinson (chair), Susan Albin, Sudharshana Apte, Zhi-Long Chen, Pooja Dewan, Michael Gorman, Ananth Iyer, Evan Levine, and Harrison Schramm.
Antonio Carbajal chaired the 2018 Edelman Gala Committee during the fall of 2017. His employer, Turner Broadcasting Systems, was designated as an Edelman finalist in late 2017; consequently, Antonio resigned from the Gala committee in January 2018 to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest because the committee receives summary information from all finalists in February. Ranganath Nuggehalli graciously agreed to take over as Gala chair in January and through the Gala. We thank the Edelman Gala Committee: Ranganath Nuggehalli (chair), Jeffrey Alden, Sudharshana Apte, Peter Bell, Ann Bixby, Allen Butler, Antonio Carbajal (through 2017), Pooja Dewan, Russell Labe, Tarun Mohan Lal, Patricia Neri, Anne Robinson, Randall Robinson, Rina Schneur, and INFORMS staff members Tracy Cahall, Jeff Cohen, Tom Fink, Ashley Kilgore, Mary Leszczynski, Max Resnick, Olivia Schmitz, and Kara Tucker. We thank Don Kleinmuntz, who served as the Gala’s master of ceremonies.
We thank Alice Mack, the manuscript editor of this issue, and the INFORMS staff who helped with many aspects of the process.
A special thanks to the Wagner Prize special-issue editor, Russell Labe, who helped edit the Turner Broadcasting article (which describes aspects relevant to both the Wagner and Edelman Award competitions).
