Incoming Editor-in-Chief Vision Statement
I am extremely grateful to the search committee, the editorial board, and the former editors-in-chief for their support throughout my several decades publishing in INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics, appointment as an associate editor in 2008, and now elevation to the role of editor-in-chief. In addition to all the editors-in-chief under whom I have published, I owe a debt of gratitude to my late colleague, Gene Woolsey of the Colorado School of Mines, one of the founders of the journal. I view archival journals as extremely important to our field because they serve to verify and document progress in academic work. Journal articles, which are vetted by informed referees and editors, expose researchers to organized thought on open questions and novel answers. And, for industry practitioners who mentor employees and academics who advise students, learning to publish in the academic literature serves as a structured approach to articulating research problems and solutions under expert guidance. I started publishing in Interfaces under Editor-in-Chief Terry Harrison (the Pennsylvania State University). Since then, I have experienced a succession of accomplished and capable editors-in-chief, including (listed chronologically) Jeff Camm (Wake Forest University), Srinivas Bollapragada (General Electric Company), and Michael Gorman (University of Dayton). They have all done an excellent job of maintaining the journal’s health and contemporaneity. I give a special thanks to Michael Gorman for ensuring a smooth editor-in-chief transition. My vision for the future, therefore, only aims to strengthen an already successful journal in light of an ever-changing academic and industry environment:
I encourage submissions of manuscripts with new and impactful applications in established areas such as transportation, logistics, and supply chain management, as well as energy systems, healthcare, electronic commerce, and the sharing economy. Similarly, I welcome mature methods in optimization, queueing theory, and decision analysis, as well as emerging techniques in data science, especially when they advance data-driven decision making. I solicit papers that enhance the journal’s visibility, including literature reviews and tutorials.
In addition to the special issues featuring the Edelman Award and Wagner Prize finalists, I encourage ideas for special issues. As of this writing, the special issue on “Analytics Remedies to COVID-19” is just appearing, with guest editor Michael Gorman. A special issue on “Decision Analysis” is forthcoming with guest editors Saurabh Bansal (the Pennsylvania State University), Karen E. Jenni (U.S. Geological Survey), Jeffrey Keisler (University of Massachusetts–Boston), and Johannes Ulrich Siebert (Management Center–Innsbruck). I urge those interested in editing a special issue to contact me.
As a researcher with international collaborations, I seek submissions from authors in countries that have traditionally been underrepresented in the journal. Correspondingly, submissions addressing real-world challenges that operations research and analytics have been able to address in those countries are encouraged. I plan to engage with societies in operations research and analytics in other countries to help solicit publications.
Finally, I intend to explore the value of posting online material, such as videos, that is dynamic and interactive. Other journals, such as INFORMS Journal on Computing and IISE Transactions, are encouraging this type of information sharing to build communities around practical implementation tools to broaden the impact of applied research.
I would like to recognize the service of retiring Editor-in-Chief Terry Harrison and welcome new Associate Editor Manoj Chari (Elon University).
