Starting around two and a half years ago, I began interacting with a young statistician, Rahul Mazumder, about synergies between research in statistics and optimization—two topics that form part of the core of operations research as a discipline. Together with Paul Grigas, a doctoral student at the ORC, the three of us started to explore a variety of issues, including connecting boosting methods in statistics to modern algorithms in optimization, using optimization tools to solve statistics problems that arise in recommender systems and other collaborative filtering methods, as well as exploring how optimization can contribute to a variety of algorithmic and statistical issues in logistic regression. It was a delight to work with an ORC doctoral student on such an interdisciplinary agenda of topics, and our collaboration has been both very productive as well as deeply satisfying at an intellectual level.
What does the ORC mean to me? The Operations Research Center has always been my favorite place at MIT. Why? Because among all of the various units at MIT, only the ORC has it all: charm, wit, wisdom, and the desire to showcase the very best that operations research offers the world. The charm of the ORC stems from its staff and the great students and the great student culture. I don’t know how they do it, but year after year, the students amaze us with their intellect, stamina, humanity for one another, and their delightful approach to the faculty. The wit of the ORC is seen in the decorations and the great ORC T-shirt contest. The wisdom of the ORC is really showcased when I attend a thesis defense. Not only are the students’ theses a great intellectual testament to their talents, but it is also great to see how many fellow students attend a thesis defense to support and uphold the camaraderie of the Center. But most of all, the ORC truly showcases the can-do spirit of operations research by engendering a fearless sense of “I can solve your problem” in the students and the faculty, and shows me month after month, year after year, why I keep coming back to the MIT Operations Research Center.
