Introduction: 2020 Franz Edelman Award for Achievement in Advanced Analytics, Operations Research, and Management Science

Selection committee members, verifiers, coaches, judges, and those supporting the awards ceremony all deserve thanks for the effort they put into making the Franz Edelman Award competition a success—in spite of the disruptive pandemic.

We thank this year’s members of the selection committee: Pooja Dewan (chair), Layek Abdel-Malek, Jeff Alden, Sharon Arroyo, Carrie Beam, Rob Benson, Sudip Bhattacharjee, Ann Bixby, Aaron Burciaga, Manoj Chari, Walt DeGrange, Kenneth Fordyce, Yoshi Ikura, Ananth Iyer, Shailendra Jain, Burcu Keskin, Don Kleinmuntz, Russ Labe, Irvin Lustig, John Milne, Polly Mitchell-Guthrie, Sven Müller, Patricia Neri, Olga Raskina, Cynthia Rudin, Harrison Schramm, Dashi Singham, Michael Trick, Rajesh Tyagi, and Andres Weintraub.

We thank the coaches: Layek Abdel-Malek, Jeffrey Alden, Sharon Arroyo, Aaron Burciaga, Manoj Chari, Ken Fordyce, Yoshi Ikura, Ananth Iyer, Irvin Lustig, Sven Müller, Patricia Neri, and Harrison Schramm.

We thank the judging panel: Pooja Dewan (chair), Carrie Beam, Sudip Bhattacharjee, Ann Bixby, Gul Ege, Michael Gorman, Shailendra Jain, Olga Raskina, and Rajesh Tyagi.

We thank those who helped with this year’s Edelman Awards Ceremony: INFORMS staff members Ashley Kilgore, Mary Leszczynski, Mary Magrogan, Max Resnick, and Kara Tucker. We thank Peter Bell and Grace Lin, who served as the award’s masters of ceremonies.

We thank Alice Mack, the manuscript editor of this issue, and the INFORMS staff who helped with many aspects of the process.