The George Nicholson Student Paper Competition: awarded for outstanding papers in the field of operations research and the management sciences written by a student.


2024-(Honorable Mention) Shuvomoy Das Gupta: Branch-and-Bound Performance Estimation Programming: A Unified Methodology for Constructing Optimal Optimization Methods

2024-(Finalist) Zikai Xiong and Robert Freund: The Role of Level-Set Geometry on the Performance of PDHG for Conic Linear Optimization

2020–(First Place) Ryan Cory-Wright and Jean Pauphilet: Mixed-Projection Conic Optimization: A New Paradigm for Modeling Rank Constraints

2018–(Finalist) Lennart Baardman: Learning Optimal Advertising Portfolios with Periodic Budgets

2016–(Finalist) Ali Aouad: Greedy-Like Algorithms for Dynamic Assortment Optimization under Multinomial Logit Preferences

2016–(Finalist) Rajan Udwani: Robust Monotone Submodular Function Maximization

2015–(Finalist) Wang-Chi Cheung: Sampling-Based Approximation Schemes for Capacitated Stochastic Inventory Control Models

2013–(Finalist) Vishal Gupta and Nathan Kallus: Robust Optimization in Data Rich Environments

2012–(Finalist) Chaithanya Bandi and Nataly Youssef: Robust Queueing Theory

2012–(Finalist) Yuan Zhong: Optimal Queue-size Scaling in Switched Networks

2011–(Second Place) Yehua Wei: Understanding the Performance of the Long Chain and Sparse Designs in Process Flexibility

2011–(Honorable Mention) Juliane Dunkel: The Gomory-Chvátal Closure of a Non-Rational Polytope is a Rational Polytope

2010–(Finalist) David Goldberg: On the Rate of Convergence to Stationarity of the M/M/N Queue in the Halfin-Whitt Regime

2009–(First Place) Cong Shi: Approximation Algorithms for the Stochastic Lot-sizing Problem

2009–(Finalist) Ye Lu: A Price-Dependent Demand Substitution Rule and Its Applications

2009–(Finalist) Theophane Weber: Random Decision Networks: Correlation Decay and Decentralized Optimization

2008–(Finalist) Dmitriy Katz-Rogozhnikov: On Deciding Stability of Multiclass Queueing Networks under Buffer Priority Scheduling Policies

2008–(Finalist) Tri-Dung Nguyen: Robust Covariance Estimation and Outlier Detection Using Semidefinite Programming: The Robust Ranking Problems with an Application in Portfolio Optimization

2007–(First Place) Nelson Uhan: Encouraging Cooperation in Sharing Supermodular Costs

2007–(Honorable Mention) Timothy Chan: The Management of Uncertainties in Radiation Treatments of Lung Tumors

2006–(Second Place) Alexandre Belloni: On the Computational Complexity of MCMC-based Estimators in Large Samples

2006–(Honorable Mention) Stephen Shum: Coordinating Efforts of Multiple Retailers in a Decentralized Supply Chain

2004–(Second Place) Melvyn Sim: Robust Conic Optimization

2003–(Second Place) Sanne de Boer: Airline Revenue Management Under Imperfect Market Segmentation

2003–(Honorable Mention) Victor Martinez de Albeniz: A Portfolio Approach to Procurement Contracts

2002–(Second Place) Melvyn Sim: Robust Discrete Optimization

2002–(Honorable Mention) Xin Chen: Coordinating Inventory Control and Pricing Strategies with Random Demand and Fixed Ordering Cost

2001–(1st Prize) Alp Muharremoglu: Echelon Base Stock Policies in Uncapacitated Serial Inventory Systems

2000–(Second Place) Marina Epelman: Measures of Conditioning and Pre-Conditioners for Conic Linear Systems

2000–(Honorable Mention) Jay Sethuraman: From Fluid Relaxations to Practical Algorithms for Job Shop Scheduling

1997–(First Place) Stefanos Zenios: Dynamic Allocation of Kidneys to Patients on the Transplant Waiting List

1996–(Second Place) Georgia Mourtzinou: Transient Distributional Little’s Law and Their Applications

1991–(Second Place) Kalyan T. Talluri: Network Design on the Plane with Connectivity Requirements

1990–(Second Place) Michel Goemans: Survivable Networks and the Parsimonious Property

1989–(First Place) Dimitris J. Bertsimas: A Priori Optimization

1985–(Second Place) Paul Tseng: The Relaxation Method for a Special Class of Linear Programming Problems