2021 Beale Lecture - The OR Society

Thank you to all those that attended

Thank you to everyone that joined us online for the 2021 Beale Lecture to listen to our speakers and panel discussions for an afternoon of insight and networking.

About the event

The afternoon began with our opening speaker, Geraint Palmer. Winner of the 2018 Doctoral Award, Geraint explained his PhD work on Modelling Deadlock in Queueing Systems. Following this insightful presentation, an expert panel enjoyed a discussion on Real-World Optimisation Models: Successes and Pitfalls whilst celebrating the work of Dr Ailsa Land.

The panellists each gave a short presentation to discuss the following:

Explain the successes and roadblocks they have encountered in the application of mathematical programming models to significant real-world problems
provide valuable insight into the future role of such optimisation models
discuss the importance of colleagues and mentors collaborating with and supporting women

The panel members were:

Jeffrey Camm, Wake Forest University, USA
Professor and Chair, Business Analytics; Associate Dean of Business Analytics

Karla Hoffman, George Mason University, USA
Professor, Systems Engineering & Operations Research Department

Ivana Ljubic, ESSEC Business School, France
Professor, Information Systems, Decision Sciences and Statistics

Anna Nagurney, University of Massachusetts, USA
John F. Smith Memorial Professor; Director, Virtual Center for Supernetworks; Department of Operations and Information Management, Isenberg School of Management

Susara van den Heever, IBM
Director, IBM Expert Labs Sales EMEA

Douglas Shier (moderator), Clemson University, USA
Emeritus Professor, Mathematical and Statistical Sciences

Memorial Lecture for one of OR's true greats

The OR Society’s Beale Medal is awarded each year in memory of the late Martin Beale.

Evelyn Martin Lansdowne Beale FRS (8 September 1928 – 23 December 1985) was an applied mathematician and statistician who was one of the pioneers of mathematical programming.

Most of Beale’s papers on particular calculations and on particular techniques are noted by amongst others, The Royal Statistical Society, the ORS and the Royal Society as “substantial contributions to knowledge”

Known as Martin Beale, he is probably best remembered for his constant and active interest in the development of mathematical programming systems for applying optimisation algorithms in OR practice.

He once said of OR, that “The most important part of Operational Research is educated common sense, and computers have absolutely no common sense”, but he planned his systems so well that this defect of computers was negligible.

He was one of the first scientists to encourage open publication of useful discoveries.

More details can be found in this short biography of Martin Beale.

Previous Beale Lectures

If you have never been to a Beale Lecture or have missed a previous lecture and would like to catch up, we have listed a selection here.

Last year we had a great talk from Professor Russell Cheng, University of Southampton, on the theme of 'The Enigma of Choice – When is a Good Decision Possible?'

We also have many more videos that you can watch on our YouTube channel.

Visit YouTube Channel Here

The future of OR is present

Mike C Jackson OBE, Emeritus Professor at the University of Hull, gave the 2019 Beale Lecture on The future of OR is present.

View Mike Jackson's lecture here

The fitness and survival of the OR profession in the age of artificial intelligence

Richard Ormerod delivers the Beale Lecture for 2018 on The Fitness and Survival of the OR Profession in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.

View Professor Ormerod's Beale Lecture

Opening talk: Heterogeneous location and pollution-routing problems

Dr Çağri Koç gave the opening talk entitled Heterogeneous Location and Pollution-Routing Problems but, before he did so, President John Hopes presented him with his award.

View Dr Çağri Koç's Beale lecture here

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