Workshop on Opportunities at the Statistics-Operations Research Interface

American Statistical Association, Alexandria VA

Investigators

Abstract

ABSTRACT: DMS-0343462 Workshop on Opportunities at the Statistics-Operations Research Interface The American Statistical Association (ASA) and the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS) are conducting a small workshop bringing together research leaders in statistics and operations research to increase the interaction at the interface between these research areas. This small conference is structured to focus on research activities from these two increasingly divergent communities in order to improve communications between research groups, break down delimiting barriers, share research techniques, and investigate emerging topics. ASA and INFORMS are two professional societies that represent the interests of most active researchers, practitioners, and educators in statistics and operations research. Many immediately practical and/or deeply difficult research problems fall at the traditional interface of these disciplines, e.g., impacts and techniques of computer simulation, variational problems in optimization, design and analysis of production data, optimal design in manufacturing processes and experiments, and educational challenges made more difficult by the rapid expansion of the knowledge base in each area. Thus, these sponsoring professional societies are organizing and conducting this workshop devoted to new research and applications at the interface. Participants are leading academic researchers, government laboratory researchers, industry research leaders, and influential educational representatives. Research topics that are fundamental to the two areas are being discussed, applications of these topics to problems of national concern are addressed and a conference report, reporting the results is produced. It is this latter document that is enabling the discussion to spread well beyond the bounds of the workshop. This document is produced by the steering committee with contributions from speakers and participants. The report is made available on the ASA and INFORMS web pages for general discussion by members of the sponsoring societies, and to the general mathematical and engineering sciences communities. Thus, the workshop addresses open research problems, discusses the use of novel and/or developing techniques to address these problems and stimulates new collaborations between the researchers in the two disciplines. Plans are developed to insure that the participants are from diverse backgrounds, with representatives from minority groups and women being included.