Resoundingly Human

Even with the COVID-19 vaccine readily available throughout much of the country, and the age ranges of those who can receive it expanding, research shows that in the face of a new wave or variant of the coronavirus, the tools that we used at the onset of the pandemic, masking and social distancing, are still key to helping mitigate the spread of the virus. Joining me to share his research to help develop a model for social distancing policies to prevent surges in new cases and hospitalizations is Dave Morton with Northwestern University.

When you take a look back, even just over the past couple of years, the devastation caused by the seemingly growing threat of large-scale wildfires has made headlines around the world. From the unprecedented brushfires in Australia in 2019-2020, to California's record setting wildfire season later that same year, and most recently the Colorado prairie grass fires which occurred well outside of the traditional fire season, the increasing frequency and intensity of wildfire incidents are a growing global concern. Not only are these fires capable of causing billions of dollars in damage each year, but contribute to the deaths of thousands of people, not to mention have a devastating impact on local wildlife and ecosystems. But are there steps that can be taken to better prepare and position first responders and others involved in combatting and minimizing the physical and financial impact of these fires? Joining me to discuss his work using stochastic optimization to support better decisions regarding resource deployment both in the stages before a fire occurs as well as when multiple fires are underway is Lewis Ntaimo with Texas A&M University.

In this week's episode I'm thrilled to be joined by a very special guest, Sam Buttrey, an associate professor of operations research at the Naval Postgraduate School and winner of the first-ever Jeopardy! Tournament of Professors. Sam competed against professors from across the country and in a variety of disciplines to win not only the $100,000 grand prize, but an opportunity to further compete in the 2022 Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions.

Welcome to a brand-new year of Resoundingly Human podcasts! Whether this is your first episode, or you are a long-time listener, thank you for joining us and I hope you'll subscribe for for even more great content highlighting the incredible contributions of INFORMS members. To kick off the first episode of the new year, joining me is the 2022 INFORMS president Radhika Kulkarni, a member of the analytics industry for 35+ years, most recently as the VP of Advanced Analytics R&D at SAS.

What a year this has been! To start, I want to thank everyone who has tuned into the podcast this year, and whether this is the first episode you're listening to or the 50th, your support of the podcast has helped us share the incredible work of INFORMS members and the many ways their contributions are saving lives, saving money and solving problems. In fact, I'm thrilled to share that in 2021 we didn't just reach a major milestone, but blew it out of the water, when we surpassed 50,000 unique downloads of our episodes well ahead of our expectations! This year's episodes covered a wide spectrum of research, discoveries and ground-breaking applications in O.R., analytics, data science and more that are having a significant impact on the world around us. Let's take a look back over some highlights from 2021!

Since I first met with the 2021 INFORMS president Stephen Graves at the beginning of the year, INFORMS has achieved several significant milestones despite the continued challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, to include the launching of a new strategic plan and a return to in-person meetings with the INFORMS Annual Meeting in Anaheim, CA earlier this fall. Now as 2021 draws to a close, Steve joins me for his final interview as president for a look back over the past year and all that INFORMS has accomplished.