Larson
Receives
Larnder Award
May
17, 2004
Dick
Larson, President-Elect of INFORMS,
was today awarded the Harold Larnder
Prize, which is financed through the
Harold Larnder Memorial Trust of the
Canadian Operational Research Society.
The prize is awarded annually to an
individual who has achieved international
distinction in Operational Research.
The prize winner delivers the Harold
Larnder Memorial Lecture at the National
Conference of the Canadian Operational
Research Society. Dr. Larson received
a framed certificate commemorating
the honor. Previous winners
include George Dantzig, Art
Geoffrion, Ward Whitt, Jan Karel Lenstra,
Allan Manne, William Pierskalla, Harvey
Wagner and Abraham Charnes.
Harold
Larnder was a well known Canadian
in wartime Operational Research. He
studied engineering and science at
Dalhousie University and was a member
of Sir Robert Watson Watt's team which
worked at the Bawdsey Research Station
in the late 1930s. He played a major
part in the development of an effective,
radar based, air defense system during
the battle of Britain. He later shared
a prize with Watson Watt and others
for their development of the radar.
Larnder returned to Canada in 1951
to join the Canadian Defense Research
Board. He was the President of CORS
in 1966/67.
This
is the abstract of Larson's Harold
Larnder Memorial Lecture:
Emerging
Opportunities for Operations Research
in Educational Services
Operations research has increasingly
demonstrated its applicability to
the services industries including
health care, transportation, finance,
telecommunications and retailing.
But North America's second largest
services industry--education--has
not had OR attention commensurate
with its size and importance.
In this talk Professor Larson will
provide a tour of some promising OR
modeling and analysis opportunities
in the educational sector. Topics
include:
-
Use of decision analysis and stochastic
modeling to create 'virtual patients'
in on-line educational web sites
for physicians,
-
Optimally configuring on-line collaborative
project teams to maximize learning
outcomes;
-
Configuring software agents as virtual
tutors to assist in finding useful
educational materials and in correcting
homework problems;
-
Designing learning environments
that allow learners to take different
paths in a network of educational
activities to get to the same desired
learning outcome.
Professor
Larson is also directing LINC, Learning
International Networks Consortium,
an international community of practitioners
and scholars interested in bringing
quality tertiary education to developing
countries. He will describe
an effort to use the OCW (MIT OpenCourseWare)
website of the MIT subject, Urban
Operations Research (aka Logistical
and Transportation Planning Methods)
to create a global on-line learning
community focusing on operations research
as it applies to urban operational
problems of developing countries.
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