Pierskalla Best Paper Award

2024 Winner(s)

Winning material: Policy Optimization for Personalized Interventions in Behavioral Health

Purpose of the Award

The Health Applications Society of INFORMS sponsors an annual competition for the Pierskalla Award, which recognizes research excellence in the field of health care management science. The award includes an honorarium for the best paper presented in a Health Applications Society sponsored session at the annual INFORMS conference. The award is named after Dr. William Pierskalla to recognize his contribution and dedication to improving health services delivery through operations research. Dr. Pierskalla is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the Anderson School at UCLA and the Ronald A. Rosenfeld Professor Emeritus, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and serves as an editor on numerous operations research journals.

Application Process

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About the Award/Namesake

Pierskalla Best Paper Award

William P. Pierskalla, Ph.D., is the John E. Anderson Professor of Management and Former Dean of the John E. Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA. He is also the Ronald A. Rosenfeld Professor Emeritus, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He holds the A.B. in Economics and M.B.A. degrees from Harvard University, an M.A. in mathematics from the University of Pittsburgh and a M.S. in statistics and a Ph.D. in operations research from Stanford University..

Learn more about William P. Pierskalla »


Past Awardees

2024
Winner(s)
Erez Yoeli, Keheala
Jackie Baek, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Justin Boutilier, University of Toronto
Jónas Oddur Jónasson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Vivek Farias, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Runner-Up
Cristobal Pais, Amazon LLC
Elizabeth Wade, Amazon LLC
Jianfeng Liu, Amazon LLC
Mohsen Bayati, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business
Robert Voigt, Amazon LLC
Vin Gupta, Amazon LLC; University of Washington
Finalist
Ashvin Gandhi, University of California, Los Angeles
Douglas Bish, University of Alabama
Ebru Bish, University of Alabama
Hussein El Hajj, Santa Clara University
Jingyuan Hu, University of California, Los Angeles
2023
Winner(s)
Debbie Stone, Rogers Hixon Ontario Human Milk Bank
Deborah O'Connor, University of Toronto
Ian Yihang Zhu, National University of Singapore
Rachel Wong, University of Toronto
Rafid Mahmood, University of Ottawa
Sharon Unger, University of Toronto
Timothy Chan, University of Toronto
Runner-Up
Darren Stewart, New York University
Dimitris J. Bertsimas , Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management and Operations Research Center
James Alcorn, United Network for Organ Sharing
Nikolaos Trichakis, Massachussetts Institute of Technology
Rebecca Goff, United Network for Organ Sharing
Theodore Papalexopoulos, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Finalist
Bilal Gokpinar, Northwestern University, Industrial Engineering & Management Science
Danny Hughes, Georgia Tech
Jiatao Ding, INSEAD
Michael Freeman, INSEAD
Sameer Hasija, INSEAD
Turgay Ayer, Georgia Institute of Technology
Zhaowei She , Georgia Institute of Technology
2022
Winner(s)
George Golovko, The University of Texas Medical Branch
Hrayer Aprahamian, Texas A&M University
Jiayi Lin, Texas A&M University
Finalist
Fanyin Zheng, Graduate School of Business, Columbia University

Guihua Wang, University of Texas at Dallas
Joan Brown, Keck Medicine of USC
Jun Li, Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan
Justin Boutilier, University of Toronto
Song-Hee Kim, Seoul National University
Timothy Chan, University of Toronto
Wallace J. Hopp, Dept. of Industrial and Operations Engineering
University of Michigan
2021
Winner(s)
Andrew Li, Carnegie Mellon University
Christos Hadjicristodoulou, University of Thessaly
Dimitrios Paraskevis, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Gkikas Magiorkinis, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Hamsa Bastani, University of Pennsylvania
Jon Vlachogiannis, AgentRisk
Kimon Drakopoulos, University of Southern California
Kyra Gan, Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University
Pagona Lagiou, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Sotirios Tsiodras, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens - 4th Department of Internal Medicine
Sridhar Tayur, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business
Su Jia, Carnegie Mellon University
Vishal Gupta, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Runner-Up
Denise Kay, New York State Department of Health
Douglas Bish, University of Alabama
Ebru Bish, University of Alabama
Hussein El Hajj, Santa Clara University
Finalist
Claire Holloway, Ontario Health
Erez Yoeli, Keheala
Justin Boutilier, University of Toronto
Jónas Oddur Jónasson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Katharina Forster, Ontario Health
Luciano Ieraci, Ontario Health
Maria Eberg, IQVIA
Nasrin Yousefi , University of Toronto
Timothy Chan, University of Toronto
Yusuf Shalaby, University of Toronto
2020
Winner(s)
Alexandre Jacquillat, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Arthur Delarue, MIT Operations Research Center
Bartolomeo Stellato, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cynthia Zeng, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dimitris J. Bertsimas , Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management and Operations Research Center
Driss Lahlou Kitane, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Galit Lukin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Hamza Tazi Bouardi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Holly Wiberg, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Ivan Paskov, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Jean Pauphilet, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Kimberly Villalobos Carballo, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Leonard Boussioux, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Luca Mingardi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Michael Li, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Omar Skali Lami, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Omid Nohadani, Benefits Science Technologies
Ryan Cory-Wright , Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Theodore Papalexopoulos, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Vassilis Digalakis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Runner-Up
Justin Boutilier, University of Toronto
Timothy Chan, University of Toronto
Finalist
A. Cem Randa, University of California San Francisco and University of California Berkeley
Baris Ata, University of Chicago
Daniel Adelman, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
John J. Friedewald, Northwestern University
Kanix Wang, University of Chicago
2019
Winner(s)
Hamsa Bastani, University of Pennsylvania
 Arielle Anderer , University of Pennsylvania
 John Silberholz , University of Michigan 
Runner-Up
David G. Coffey, University of Washington
Hamed Mamani, University of Washington
Yingfei Wang, University of Washington
Zhijin Zhou, University of Washington
Finalist
Baris Ata, University of Chicago
Diana Negoescu, Princeton University
Joel Goh, Harvard Business School
Stefanos A. Zenios, Stanford University
Sze-chuan Suen, University of Southern California
Yichuan Ding, Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia
2018
Winner(s)
Jivan Romain Deglise-Hawkinson, Lean Care Solutions
Jonathan Helm, Indiana University Health
Julian Pan, Lean Care Solutions
Pengyi Shi, Purdue University
Runner-Up
Noah Gans, University of Pennsylvania
Ozge Yapar, University of Pennsylvania
Stephen Chick, INSEAD
Finalist
Carolyn Kim, Stanford University
Hamsa Bastani, University of Pennsylvania
Hyung Paek, Yale New Haven Hospital
Osbert Bastani, University of Pennsylvania
Vishal Gupta, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2017
Winner(s)
Jeremy D. Goldhaber-Fiebert, Stanford University
Margaret L. Brandeau, Stanford University, Management Science and Engineering
Sze-chuan Suen, University of Southern California
Runner-Up
Carri W. Chan, Columbia University
Douglas Bish, University of Alabama
Ebru Bish, University of Alabama
Gabriel Escobar, Kaiser Permanente Northern California
Hrayer Aprahamian, Texas A&M University
José R. Zubizarreta, Harvard Medical School
Wenqi Hu, Columbia Business School
Finalist
Sameer Hasija, INSEAD
Stephen Chick, INSEAD
2016
Winner(s)
Hamsa Bastani, University of Pennsylvania
Mohsen Bayati, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business
Runner-Up
Zuo-Jun (Max) Shen, University of California, Berkeley
Finalist
Can Zhang, Georgia Institute of Technology
Jagpreet Chhatwal, Merck Research Laboratories
Lauren Xiaoyuan Lu, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Turgay Ayer, Georgia Institute of Technology
2015
Winner(s)
Baris Ata, University of Chicago
Sridhar Tayur, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business
Runner-Up
Stephen Chick, INSEAD
Finalist
Douglas Bish, University of Alabama
Ebru Bish, University of Alabama
Hadi El-Amine, Virginia Tech
2014
Winner(s)
Joel Goh, Harvard Business School
John Turner, University of California, Irvine
Mohsen Bayati, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business
Soo-Haeng Cho, Carnegie Mellon University
Stefanos A. Zenios, Stanford University
Finalist
Dan Iancu, Stanford University
Diana Negoescu, Princeton University
Kostas Bimpikis, Stanford University
Margaret L. Brandeau, Stanford University, Management Science and Engineering
Nicos Savva , London Business School
Stefan Scholtes, University of Cambridge, Judge Business School
2013
Winner(s)
Dimitris J. Bertsimas , Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management and Operations Research Center
John Silberholz, University of Maryland,
Runner-Up
Finalist
Carri W. Chan, Columbia University
Stefan Scholtes, University of Cambridge, Judge Business School
2012
Awardee(s)
Fuqiang Zhang, University of California, Irvine
John R. Birge, University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business
Vishal Ahuja , Southern Methodist University
Runner-Up
Soo-Haeng Cho, Carnegie Mellon University
Tinglong Dai, Carey Business School, Johns Hopkins University
2011
Awardee(s)
Douglas Bish, University of Alabama
Ebru Bish, University of Alabama
Runner-Up
Stefanos A. Zenios, Stanford University
2010
Awardee(s)
Mark Van Oyen, University of Michigan
Soroush Saghafian, Harvard University
Wallace J. Hopp, Dept. of Industrial and Operations Engineering
University of Michigan
2009
Awardee(s)
Mariel Lavieri, University of Michigan
Martin L. Puterman, University of British Columbia, Faculty of Communications & Business Administration
2008
Awardee(s)
Rajesh Sachdeo, Jersey Shore University Medical Center
W. Art Chaovalitwongse, Rutgers University
Yaju Fan, Rutgers University
2007
Awardee(s)
Chris P. Lee, University of Pennsylvania
Stefanos A. Zenios, Stanford University
2006
Awardee(s)
David Simchi-Levi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Hamed Mamani, University of Washington
Stephen Chick, INSEAD
2005
Awardee(s)
Eva K. Lee, Data and Analytics Innovation Institute
2003
Awardee(s)
Ravindra K. Ahuja, University of Florida, ISE Department
2002
Awardee(s)
Jinho Lim, University of Houston
2001
Awardee(s)
Gregory S. Zaric, University of Western Ontario, Richard Ivey School of Business
Margaret L. Brandeau, Stanford University, Management Science and Engineering
2000
Awardee(s)
Allen Holder, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology