Welcome to the Philadelphia chapter of INFORMS

 

Latest News:


March 24th, 2011 meeting, Drexel University
John Toczek discussed predicting crime in Philadelphia.  Using historical crime data and analytics, over 200 users from 12 countries participated in Analytics X, an online competition that ran in 2010 to predict where crime would occur in Philadelphia.  Competitors uploaded mathematical models which were then judged and ranked by accuracy (using RMSE).  Attendees of this session will learn about predictive analytics, prediction strategies (including time series, network, and regressive analyses), the efficiency of these strategies, and an overview of Analytics X.


May 7th, 2010 meeting
Our May meeting was held on: May 7th 2010 (Friday) from 4:30 to 6:30pm at Penn State's Great Valley Campus.  Manos Hatzakis, Vice President at Goldman Sachs Asset Management,  presented an operational and control policy framework that incorporates industry-wide best practices and reflects current thinking as shaped by 2007-2009 financial crisis. The importance of strong governance in effecting best practices and of robust infrastucture was emphasized.

March 15th, 2010 meeting
Our March meeting was held on: March 15th 2010 (Monday) from 4:30 to 6:30pm at the Drexel University.   Dr. Ben Lev, Professor and Head - Department of Decision Sciences of LeBow College of Businesss - Drexel University, discussed how volunteering for INFORMS can open doors and create opportunities. Such experience benefits the individual, the local INFORMS chapter, the national INFORMS organization, and the field of Operations Research in general. Much of Dr. Lev's international work has been the result of his continuing involvement with INFORMS, involvement that began with Philly INFORMS chapter.

Thanks to everyone who came out to our local social event on Thursday, December 3rd, 2009.





Congratulations to our new officers for 2010!
Congratulations to our new officers who will serve their roles throughout 2010.
Yanni Papadakis - President
Nat Teerapirak - Vice President
Neil Desnoyers - Treasurer
John Toczek - Secretary


July 21, 2009 meeting
Our July meeting was held on:  July 21st 2009 (Tuesday) from 4:30 to 6:30pm at the ARAMARK Tower in downtown Philadelphia. ARAMARK's Decision Support team (Natawan Teerapirak, John Toczek, and Andrew Pelcin) in a joint effort with Bayes Corp.,(Nigel Cooper and James Sewell) presented a talk on predicting the ultimate cost of employee injuries.  This talk was given at the annual INFORMS meeting in Phoenix, AZ in April 2009.


April 6th, 2009 meeting
Our April meeting was held on: April 6th 2009 (Monday) from 4:30 to 6:30pm at the ARAMARK Tower in downtown Philadelphia.  Dr. Bruce Pollack-Johnson of Villanova University spoke on project management and the relationships between quality, time and cost.  Traditional project management utilizes a time/cost analysis and assumes equal quality for each task within the project.  Dr. Pollack-Johnson's research recognizes that the quality of a task is determined by the time and money spent on it.  Utilizing a nonlinear programming model, the overall quality of a project can be maximized and the tradeoffs between time, cost, and quality can be evaluated.


November 12th meeting
Our November meeting was held on: November 12th (Wednesday) from 4:30 to 6:30pm at the Aramark Tower
Mr. James Sewell, Chairman of Bayes Corp., spoke on the work he did as the Project Manager for the Hamlet Evaluation System (HES) in 1968 under Ambassadors Robert Komer and William Colby.  The HES provided a mathematical model of the governmental, administrative and security aspects of South Vietnam based on micro-data reported at the level of 14,000 hamlets.  The HES pioneered the use of probabilistic modeling and factor analysis in broad based socio-demographic modeling.
Our meeting was also broadcast via webex, conference call, and webcam.
Mr. Sewell's slides can be found here.


August 27th meeting
Our August 27th, 2008 meeting was held at the Aramark tower in downtown Philadelphia.  Dr. Frank Kampas of WAM systems spoke on the risk analysis of the Cassini mission.  Next meeting will be in November. 


July 2009 meeting
Our July meeting was held on: July 21st 2009 (Tuesday) from 4:30 to 6:30 at the ARAMARK Tower in downtown Philadelphia.
 

March 2008 Meeting
The Philadelphia chapter of INFORMS kicked off its reactivation meeting on March 26, 2008 with a presentation on Energy Policy in the United States given by Dr. Fred Murphy from Temple University.