Category: Conferences

Gary Lorden at INFORMS


Most of the time, I can recognize the plenary speakers at INFORMS conferences, at least by name. The INFORMS San Francisco (nee New Orleans) conference has a guy named Gary Lorden speaking. Gary Lorden? Who the heck is he?

It turns out Gary is the mathematical advisor for the TV show Numb3rs, a crime show whose solution is generally based on mathematics of some sort. I found a review of one of his previous lectures: it sounds like it will be a blast! All the more reason to stay through Wednesday in San Fran.

CORS/Optimization Days 2006

CORS 2006 in Montreal has a very impressive group of invited speakers:

– Teodor Gabriel Crainic, École des sciences de la gestion, Université du Québec à Montréal
Planning Models for Transportation in the Electronic Age
– Egon Balas, Carnegie Mellon (IFORS Distinguished Lecturer)

– Jack Edmonds (no web page, but here is a description of some of his work)
Existentially Polytime Theorems

– Ralph E. Gomory, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Thoughts about Integer Programming

– Adam N. Letchford, Lancaster University
Semidefinite Programming and Combinatorial Optimization

Definitely some impressive people there!

INFORMS San Francisco

Due to the hurricane, the INFORMS Meeting in November has been switched from New Orleans to San Francisco. It amazes me that a three thousand person meeting can be switched with such apparent ease. I am chairing the 2006 meeting in Pittsburgh: we have been working and planning on things for 2 years now. The thought of having to change everything three months before the conference is very scary. There is a great article in the October, 2005 issue of OR/MS Today on the planning for the switch (it wasn’t as easy as it looks). We almost ended up in Kansas City (which would have been OK, but I prefer SF).