Prizes

[President’s Lifetime Achievement Award] [Hans Daellenbach Prize] [Visiting Lecturers] [Young Practioner Prize] [John A. George Memorial Prize] [Older ORSNZ Prizes] [Other Prizes awarded to Members]

President’s Lifetime Achievement Award

In 2013 the first President’s Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Prof David Ryan. The President’s Lifetime Achievement Award is in recognition of contributions made throughout the recipient’s career to both the ORSNZ and Operations Research in New Zealand and internationally.

Year Prize Winner
2013
Inaugural Prize
David Ryan Professor David Ryan
Dept of Engineering Science
University of Auckland
View photos 1 2 3 4 5 6 (c) G Cabrera
View more photos 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 (c) H Henderson

ORSNZ Hans Daellenbach Prize

To honour the considerable contributions of Emeritus Professor Hans Daellenbach to Operations Research/Management Science (OR/MS) in New Zealand, the ORSNZ established the ORSNZ Hans Daellenbach Prize in 2001. Professor Daellenbach’s contributions reflect his belief that the best work in OR/MS combines strong innovative methodology with practical impact. The Daellenbach Prize will be awarded for such a body of work that has made a significant contribution and received international recognition. More details…
You can read more about Hans in the March 1999 Newsletter, and peruse one of his articles in the Jan 1996 Newsletter.
Emeritus Professor Hans Daellenbach
Year Prize Winner
2001
Inaugural Prize
Professor David Ryan Professor David Ryan
Dept Engineering Science
University of Auckland
University of Auckland Article…Read about David’s airline work (OR/MS Today, April 2000)View photos 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 of the presentation.
(c) M Ehrgott
2003
Professor Les Foulds Professor Les Foulds
Department of Management Systems
Waikato Management School
The University of Waikato
View photos 1 2 of the presentation.
(c) M Ehrgott
2006
Professor Andy Philpott
Dept Engineering Science
University of Auckland
Read the Prize Citation
View the RSNZ presentation or
the ORSNZ ceremony and talk.

(c) A Mason, D McKinnon
2012
Professor Grant Read
Canterbury University
Read the Nomination
View the award photo.

Photo (c) M Ehrgott
2017
Professor Vicky Mabin
Victoria University of Wellington
Read the Prize Citation and Vicky’s CV
View the award photo.

Photo (c) A Downward
2023
A/P Andrew Mason
University of Aucklabd
Read the Prize Citation.
View the award photo.

Photo

ORSNZ Visiting Lecturers

Call for Nominations: The ORSNZ invites nominations for ORSNZ honorary visiting lecturers to visit New Zealand between September and June each year. Each visiting lecturer is invited to give a talk on some topic likely to be of general interest to ORSNZ members at three or more of Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, and Christchurch. Each visiting lecturer will be invited to write a guest editorial for the society newsletter. The ORSNZ contributes to the costs up to a maximum of $1000 plus GST (if any) per visitor. Each candidate must be nominated by a current member of ORSNZ, “the champion”. The nomination must include the CV of the nominated visiting lecturer, the date and location of the hosts of the visit, the name of the champion and an undertaking by the champion to coordinate a visit by the nominee to three or more of the above named centres. Enquiries concerning, or nominations for, lectureships should be sent to president@orsnz… The closing date for nominations is the end of April.

Once nominations have been received, the President will consult Council before forming a subcommittee to review the nominations. The subcommittee is to determine the options that are to be presented to Council. Multiple visiting lecturers in any one year are permissible if the circumstances permit.

Year Vistor
2007
Mike Trick Professor Michael Trick is Professor of Operations Research at the Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University. Mike is best known for his Web presence, including his OR blog, and as an ex-President of INFORMS. He has a personal blog of his NZ trip. Mike gave an excellent Hood lecture in Auckland. University of Auckland Article…
2008
Anita Schobel Prof Anita Schobel is Professor of Optimization at the University of Gottingen, working in optimization and OpPPS. Prof Schobel gave a plenary address at the 2008 ORSNZ Conference.
2008
Ted Ralphs Associate Professor Ted Ralphs from Lehigh University is actively involved in the Open Source COIN-OR project as the author and developer of the Symphony optimisation package. He is currently developing CHivel Programming. Photos: exploring Auckland 1, 2, 3, and presenting in Auckland in January 2009.

ORSNZ Young Practitioner Prize
Effective from 2013.11.26

  1. The Young Practitioner Prize (YPP) is open to all presenters at the annual ORSNZ conference who are within 5 years of graduation on the first day of presentations at the conference. YPP entrants must clearly identify themselves to the conference organisers by any deadline specified in the call for papers or on the conference website, when submitting their abstract and their paper, and when registering.
  2. YPP entrants will present their work in a talk of typically 15 to 20 minutes duration, with approximately 5 minutes for questions. (The exact figures are determined by the conference organizer to fit the conference schedule.) The presentation length will be strictly enforced.
  3. YPP entrants must submit a paper to the conference organisers that meets the requirements for inclusion in the conference proceedings. Except in exceptional circumstances, this paper will be published in the proceedings.
  4. Supervisors of YPP entrants are normally expected to appear as an author if they have contributed to the ideas or implementation described in the paper. Supervisors may not take part in the presentation of the work.
  5. In addition to the submitted paper, YPP entrants must submit a cover sheet (see YPPcoversheet.doc or YPPcoversheet.pdf) detailing:
    1. the starting point of the project (including existing software),
    2. the entrants’ contributions to the work (clearly distinguishing this from the supervisor’s contributions) and
    3. whether they are an industrial practitioner, or a PhD, Masters, or undergraduate student, and the time that they allocated to the project (e.g. 1/8th of an academic year, or 2 years of a PhD program, or 5 years working in industry).

    This completed signed form should be brought to the conference and submitted during registration. This cover sheet is to be signed by the YPP entrant’s academic or commercial supervisor(s) (or the entrant themselves if no such supervisor exists).

  6. The ORSNZ will award up to four YPP prizes at each conference from a total prize pool of up to $1000 for the judges to distribute between winners as they see fit. Not all prizes will be awarded if there are insufficient entrants of a satisfactory standard.
  7. The judges will take into consideration the quality of both the entry’s written paper and their oral presentation. Guidelines that will be used to assess entries include originality, initiative taken, difficulty of topic, the amount of time allocated to the project, and a broader recognition of the context of the project such as the assumptions made, limitations, alternative views, innovation, potential application, and future work.

Notes:

  1. Typically three prizes of values $500, $300 and $200 have been awarded.
  2. Multiple prizes have been awarded to the same person over several years.
  3. In 2006, the judging committee explicitly distinguished entries by PhD students and industrial practitioners from entries by Masters/Honours and undergraduate students.
  4. In past conferences, we have had talk lengths of: 2007:15+5; 2006:18 in total; 2005: 15+5; 2004: 20+2.5

Additional details for the format of the paper for 2018’s conference can be found here.

These rules were updated 2012.09.19 by Andrew Mason with minor additions and corrections, and noting that supervisors will normally be included as an author, as agreed at the 2012 AGM. The previous 2007 rules were confirmed by the Council Meeting of February 2007 (Minutes), with additional notes on duration added by Andrew Mason following Council meeting of Nov 2007. The requirement for a supervisor’s signature was removed on 12/11/2012, and a note added asking students to bring the completed form to the conference and submit it.

Young Practitioner Prize Winners
Drumroll…

Year Prize Author Association Paper
2023 YPP
Best paper Dominic Keehan University of Auckland, PhD (Engineering Science and Bioengineering) Dominic Keehan, Andy Philpott, Andrew Mason
Multistage production planning and price modelling
Best presentation Mostafa Papen University of Auckland, PhD (Engineering Science and Bioengineering) Mostafa Papen, Michael O’Sullivan, Yang Zou, Daniel Kulasingham
Towards the development of a Virtual Safety Officer – Few-Shot-Learning prototype
2022 YPP
Christina Yin-Chieh Lin University of Auckland, PhD (Engineering Science and Bioengineering) Modelling housing feature impacts on sale price in newly developed suburbs relative to a standard house
Karl Zhu University of Auckland, PhD (Engineering Science and Bioengineering) Finding the missing with integer programming
Uwe Langenmayr Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, PhD (Institute for Industrial Production) Calculation of synthetic energy carrier production costs with high temporal and geographical resolution.
2019 YPP
Sponsored by
Best paper Thomas Adams University of Auckland, PhD (Engineering Science) Thomas Adams, Michael O’Sullivan, Cameron WalkerComparison of objective functions for scheduling surgeries
Best presentation Param Iyer University of Auckland, PhD (Business School) Parameshwaran Iyer, Ronald Veldman, Yao Zhang Universal locker systems for urban metros
Highly commended Snigdha Saha University of Auckland, Undergraduate (Engineering Science) Snigdha Saha, Olivier Graffeuille The optimisation of milk collection
2018 YPP
Sponsored by
Thanks to our judges:
First-place $500 Isaac D Cleland
University of Auckland, PhD (Engineering Science) Isaac D. Cleland, Andrew Mason, and Michael O’Sullivan Improved Staff Rostering Algorithms
Second-place $300 Haddon Smith
University of Auckland, BE(Hons) (Engineering Science) Haddon Smith, Thomas Graham-Murdoch, Richard Clarke, Naresh Singhal, Alys Clarke, Vinod Suresh, Andrew Mason, and Stephen Waite. Determining effective placement strategies for denitrifying bioreactors in New Zealand river systems
3rd-place $200 Jesse Prendergast
University of Auckland,  ME (Engineering Science) Jesse Prendergast, Andrea Raith, and Andrew Mason Simulating First and Last Mile Transport in Auckland
2017 YPP
Sponsored by
Turstpower Logo
First-place $500 Oscar Dowson
University of Auckland, PhD (Engineering Science) Oscar Dowson. SDDP.jl: a Julia package for Stochastic Dual Dynamic Programming
Second-place $300 Thomas Adams University of Auckland, PhD (Engineering Science) Thomas Adams. Balancing Physician Workloads Under Uncertain Admissions
Third-place $200 Isaac Cleland University of Auckland, PhD (Engineering Science) Isaac Cleland. Solving a Generalised Staff Rostering Problem
2016 YPP
Sponsored by
Orbit Systems Logo
First-place $450 University of Auckland, Undergraduate (Engineering Science) Ryan Cory-Wright, Andy Philpott and Golbon Zakeri. Cost-recovering, revenue-adequate single settlement schemes for electricity markets
Highly Commended $275 Victoria University of Wellington, PhD (School of Economics and Finance) Melissa Welsh. Modelling traceability in the dairy industry
Highly Commended $275 University of Auckland, Undergraduate (Engineering Science) Danielle Gatland and Andrea Raith. Mapping electric vehicle range
2015 YPP
Best doctoral paper $250 Faisal Wahid (3rd from left) University of Auckland, PhD (Engineering Science) Faisal Wahid, Andy Philpott and Frédéric Bonnans. MIDAS touch: Solving hydro-bidding problems using mixed integer programs
Best presentation $250 Michael Lindahl (2nd from left) Technical University of Denmark (DTU), PhD (Management Engineering) Michael Lindahl and Niels-Christian Fink Bagger. Optimizing the Cable Collection Grid in Offshore Wind Farms
Best undergraduate presentation $250 Joshua Dawes (centre) University of Auckland, BE(Hons) (Engineering Science) Joshua Dawes, Golbon Zakeri and Geoffrey Pritchard. Efficient electric vehicle charging
Most promising conceptual development $125 Regan Baucke (2nd from right) University of Auckland, PhD (Engineering Science) Regan Baucke, Golbon Zakeri and Tony Downward. Exploring state dependent risk aversion in multistage programming problems
Innovative technical development prize $125 Keith Ruddell (3rd from right) University of Auckland, PhD (Engineering Science) Keith Ruddell, Andy Philpott and Anthony Downward. Transmission-constraned supply-function equilibria with price-taking players
2014 YPP
Sponsored by
Derceto Logo
1st Postgraduate $250 Lin Chen University of Auckland PhD ( Civil & Environmental Engineering) Lin Chen, Andrea Raith and Theunis F. Henning. Multi-objective optimisation in decision making of road maintenance
Judges’ comment “Great overview and testing of alternative methods, with some serious application in mind.”
1st Equal Undergraduate $250 James Waugh University of Auckland, BE(Hons) (Engineering Science) James Waugh and Andrew Mason. Columnwise Search – A heuristic for the Vehicle Routing Problem applied to Waste Collection
Judges’ comment “Another nice balanced applied OR project, using optimisation to deliver significant efficiency gains on a real problem, in a comprehensible manner.”
1st Equal Undergraduate $250 Ben Goodger University of Auckland, BE(Hons) (Engineering Science) Ben Goodger, Cameron Walker and Anthony Downward. Developing online heuristics and a near optimal benchmark for apple packing
Judges’ comment “A nice balanced applied OR project, using optimisation to set upper bound on possible gains, then developing implementable heuristics to deliver measurable gains on a potentially large scale.”
Special Prize for initiative and “good old fashioned” effectiveness $250 Michael Fairley and Oscar Dowson University of Auckland, BE(Hons) (Engineering Science) Michael Fairley and Oscar Dowson. Partitioning students into equitable groups using SolverStudio
Judges’ comment “Quick, and not actually all that dirty.”
2013 YPP
Sponsored by
Derceto Logo
1st Postgraduate $400 Antony Phillips Auckland PhD (EngSci) Antony Phillips, Matthias Ehrgott and David Ryan. Solving the Classroom Assignment
Problem Using Integer Programming
1st Equal $300
Undergraduate
Jack Dunn Auckland, BE (EngSci) Jack Dunn, Golbon Zakeri and Anthony Downward: Binary
Interruptible Load Optimisation
1st Equal $300
Undergraduate
Max Biggs Auckland, BE (EngSci) Max Biggs and Tony Downward. 2D Shape Optimization
Applied to Diamond Cutting
2012 YPP
Sponsored by
Optima Logo
1st PhD $400 Olga Perederieieva Auckland PhD (EngSci) Olga Perederieieva. Solving Bi-objective Traffic Assignment Based on
Time Surplus Maximisation
1st Masters $300 Simon Bull Auckland, BE (EngSci),
ME (EngSci)
Simon Bull, Andrew Mason and Andrea Raith: Scheduling Families of
Jobs on Multiple Identical Machines to Minimize Total Tardiness
1st Equal $150
Undergraduate
Rosemary Read Canterbury, BA(Hist),
BCom Hons (MSci)
Rosemary Read, Shane Dye, Grant Read: Generalized CDDP
for Reservoir Management
1st Equal $150
Undergraduate
Jingze (Emily) Du Auckland, BE (EngSci) Jingze Du, Matthias Ehrgott and Andrea Raith. Optimal Delivery
of Arc Modulated Radiation Therapy in Cancer Treatment
2010 YPP
Sponsored by
Derceto Logo
1st Postgraduate Anthony Downward Auckland, BE (EngSci)
PhD (EngSci)
Risk Aversion and Retail Electricity Markets
Honourable Mention
Postgraduate
Oddo Zhang Auckland, BE (EngSci),
PhD (EngSci)
Optimisation of Small-Scale Ambulance Move-Up
1st Equal
Undergraduate
Jason Drake Auckland, BE (EngSci) Design of Road Networks
1st Equal
Undergraduate
Jason Undan Auckland, BE (EngSci) Optimisation of Demand-Side Bidding
Honourable Mention
Undergraduate
Thomas Liddle Victoria, BSc (Hons) Kick Strength and Online Sampling for Iterated Local Search
Honourable Mention
Undergraduate
Uttara Nataraj Auckland, BE (EngSci) Selecting a Portfolio of Cycling Projects
1st Postgraduate Faram Engineer Auckland, BE ME (EngSci)
PhD (Georgia Tech)
Catch-up Scheduling for Childhood Vaccination [pdf]
1st Undergraduate Qi-Shan Lim Auckland, BE (EngSci) Trim Loss and Inventory Optimisation in Paper Mills
2nd Undergraduate Antony Phillips Auckland, BE (EngSci) Optimisation Models and Methods for the Container Positioning Problem in
Port Terminals
2008 DY Strategy
Consulting YPP
Winners
[certificate pdf]
1st Brendan Kite
(& Kevin Lao)
Canterbury Evaluation of Clean Development Mechanism and Joint Implementation
Projects [pdf]
2nd Anders Dohn (&
Esben Kolind)
DTU (Technical University
of Denmark), Denmark
Optimizing Manpower Allocation for Ground Handling Tasks in Airports using
Column Generation [pdf]
3rd= Antony DePont Auckland, BE (EngSci) Order Picking in Warehouses [pdf]
3rd= Gemma Clark Victoria Elder Care in NZ: A Multi-framing Approach [pdf]
3rd= Andrea Raith Auckland, PhD (EngSci) Traffic Assignment with Travel Time and Toll Cost Objectives [pdf]
2007
YPP Certificate 2007
1st Lei (Oddo) Zhang Auckland, BE (EngSci) Optimization of well placement and flow [certificate]
2nd Martin Peat Auckland, BE (EngSci) Loading congestion at New Zealand aluminium smelters
3rd Bassy Tam Auckland, PhD (EngSci) Unit crewing in the airline tour of duty planning problem
2006 1st PhD Richard Lusby Auckland, PhD (EngSci) Routing Trains Through Railway Junctions: A New Set Packing Approach [pdf]
1st ME/Hons Stuart Donovan Anckland, ME (EngSci) An improved mixed integer programming model for wind farm layout optimization [pdf]
2nd ME/Hons David Richards Anckland, ME (EngSci) A Study of Optimised Ambulance Redeployment Strategies [pdf]
2005 1st Oliver Tompkins Auckland, BE (EngSci) Strategic Production Plan Model for the Hunua Quarry [pdf]
2nd David Craigie Auckland, BE (EngSci) Portfolio Optimization via Stochastic Dominance of Benchmarks [pdf]
3rd= Tim Steer &
Richard Bramley
Canterbury, BSc (Hons) Capacity modelling of the South Island chicken operation at
Tegel Foods Ltd [pdf]
3rd= Stuart Donovan Auckland, BE (EngSci) Wind Farm Optimization [pdf]
2004 1st Kavinesh Singh Auckland, PhD (EngSci) Column Generation for Capacity-Expansion Planning of Electricity
Distribution Network
2nd Sanjay Patel Auckland, BE (EngSci) Locomotive Allocation for Toll NZ
3rd Sarah Kirkpatrick Auckland, BE (EngSci) Better Base Locations for the Melbourne Ambulance Service
2003 1st= Jarrad Wallace
Martin Young
Auckland, ME (EngSci)
Auckland, ME (EngSci)
Optimal Yacht Rig Design using Mathematical Programming
Roster Construction for Tranz Rail
2002 1st Ambili Viswambharan Auckland, BE (EngSci) Optimisation in Diamond Cutting
2nd James Tipping Canterbury, BScHons Scheduling and Routing Grass Mowers Around Christchurch
3rd Lenrick Johnston Auckland, BE/BCom, ME Optimisation of Irradiation Directions in IMRT Treatment
2001 1st Hamish Dean Canterbury, PhD Compaction Algorithms for the Garment Manufacturing
Industry
2nd Stephanie Pegg Beca Carter
(ex Auckland, BE EngSci)
An Online Optimised Pump Scheduling System
3rd Michael Clist Auckland, BE/BCom Plant Location Modelling for the Concrete and Asphalt Industries
2000 1st Thorsten Piehl Auckland, ME EngSci Cell Batching Optimisation for the New Zealand Aluminium Smelter
2nd Mark Stewart Canterbury, PhD Operational Decision Making for Internet Service Provision
3rd Rochelle Meehan Auckland, BE EngSci Flight Schedule Optimisation for Air New Zealand’s International Fleet

The table below details older winners of the Young Practitioner Prize. Drumroll…

Year First Prize Second Prize Third Prize
2007 (Auckland) Lei (Oddo) Zhang BE, Auckland Martin Peat Bassy Tam PhD, Auckland
2006 (Christchurch): PhD Section Richard Lusby PhD Auckland
2006 (Christchurch): Masters/Honours Stuart Donovan ME Auckland David Richards ME Auckland
2005 (Wellington) Oliver Tompkins, BE, Auckland David Craigie,BE, Auckland Tim Steer & Richard Bramley, Canterbury
Stuart Donovan,BE, Auckland
2004 (Auckland) Kavinesh Singh, PhD, Auckland Sanjay Patel, BE, Auckland Sarah Kirkpatrick,BE, Auckland
2003 (Waikato) Jarrad Wallace ME, Auckland
Martin Young ME, Auckland
Not awarded Not awarded
2002 (Auckland) Ambili Viswambharan BE, Auckland James Tipping BScHons, Canterbury Lenrick Johnston ME, Auckland
2001 (Canterbury) Hamish Dean PhD, Canterbury Stephanie Pegg Beca Carter Michael Clist BE/BCom, Auckland
2000 (Wellington) Thorsten Piehl ME, Auckland M Stewart PhD, Canterbury Rochelle Meehan BE, Auckland
1999 (Waikato) Catherine Hicks BE, Auckland Bert Chen BE, Auckland Parvati Patel BE, Auckland
1998 (Auckland) Stuart Mitchell Auckland Andrew Coyle Auckland
1997 (Melbourne) No Paper Prize; ORSNZ conference run as part of APORS, Melbourne
1996 (Canterbury) Kevin Broad Auckland
& Gavin Bell Canterbury
Not awarded Carey Stevens Auckland
1995 (Victoria) Kevin Broad Auckland James Deaker Auckland Kelvin WatsonMassey?
1994 (Massey) Megan Thornley Auckland Twan Vollebregt Canterbury
1993 (Auckland) Curt Hjorring Auckland Geoffrey Gill Auckland &
Mark Craddock Auckland
1992 Colin Ives Auckland &
Paul Day Auckland
1991 Brendan Ring Canterbury ?

Notes: Papers authored by two or more Young Practitioners were first formally permitted in 2005; previous entries had (generally) been single authored. In 2005, the maximum permitted age was increased from 25 to 30 effective for 2006 onwards.

John A. George (JAG) Memorial Prize

JAG Prize

This prize is awarded annually for the best application of OR for improving lives.
“How does the project contribute to improving the quality of people’s lives, particularly those who may otherwise be vulnerable or disadvantaged, now, or in the future?”

Year Winners
2023 Winner: Shirekha Layangan
2019 Sponsored by Winner: Hrishi KodthuguliHighly Commended: Maaike Vollebergh
2018 Haddon Smith, Thomas Graham-Murdoch, Richard Clarke, Naresh Singhal, Alys Clarke, Vinod Suresh, Andrew Mason, and Stephen Waite (1st place)
Determining effective placement strategies for denitrifying bioreactors in New Zealand river systems

Jesse Prendergast, Andrea Raith, and Andrew Mason (2nd place)
Simulating First and Last Mile Transport in Auckland

“The John George Memorial prize was established to encourage researchers to think about the implications of their work in terms of improving the lives of people, particularly those who might otherwise be disadvantaged or excluded.   It was always intended that the award could apply to cases where benefits were delivered directly to individuals, or indirectly by improving the environment within which communities  must live.The paper delivered by Haddon Smith (with due acknowledgement to student co-author Thomas Graham-Murdoch and various supervisors) on Determining effective placement strategies for denitrifying bioreactors in New Zealand river systems, aligned perfectly with those objectives.  We loved the way this project  brought researchers from different disciplines together to address  a major public issue of the day.  And we were impressed by the way the authors applied several alternative OR techniques to real-life large scale catchments, and the broadly applicable insights they were able to infer from their detailed analysis.We also very much liked Jesse Prendergast’s paper on Simulating Transport-as-a-Service for First- and Last-Mile Transport in Auckland.  This kind of service will be of increasing relevance,  in terms of reducing energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and congestion, but also as a means of making realistically priced transport options more accessible to those unable to drive cars.We would like to commend all three contestants, and their supervisors, who all made  positive contributions in their own way, and to specially thank Orbit Systems for sponsoring this year’s awards.”Grant Read, Vicky Mabin and Bob Cavana, JA George Judges, 2018
2017 Samuel Ridler – Ambulance simulation and optimisation (1st equal)
Samin Aref – Computing the frustration index in signed graphs using binary programming (1st equal)

Energy Centre Prizes in
‘Energy and Resources’ and ‘Transportation’

The Energy and Resources Prize and the Transportation Prize are both open to all presenters at the ORSNZ conference who are under 30 years of age on the first day of presentations at the conference. Eligible entrants are those who have submitted a paper to the conference organizers that meets the requirements for inclusion in the conference proceedings. In the case that the paper has multiple authors, all authors must be under 30 years of age on the first day of presentations at the conference. (Any number of the authors may partake in the presentation.) In the case of joint authorship, the award is to all the authors as opposed to an individual.

The University of Auckland Energy Centre will award up to 1 prize in each of the Energy and Resource as well as Transportation categories at each conference from a total prize pool of up to $1000 for the judges to distribute between winners as they see fit. Not all prizes need be awarded if there are insufficient entrants of a satisfactory standard. The judges will take into consideration the quality of both the entry’s written paper and their oral presentation. Guidelines that will be used to assess entries include originality, initiative taken, difficulty of topic, the level of the project (e.g. developed as a masters vs PhD work) and a broader recognition of the context of the project such as the assumptions made, limitations, alternative views, innovation, potential application, and future work.

The Energy Centre is part of the Business School at the University of Auckland

These prizes were first offered in 2010.

Year Energy and Resources Transportation
2010 Jason Undan Uttara Nataraj

ORSNZ Student Project Prizes

The ORSNZ student project prize was based upon a written report submitted by a student to the prize organisers. This prize was discontinued in 1993.

Year First Prize Second Prize
1993 Steve Irwin Ian O’Donaghue & Chris Wallace
1992 Ross James Massey
1990 ? Jackson, I and Mayes, KA
1989 ? ?
1988 Andrew Mason Auckland Rachel Clarke Auckland

Student Project Prize Winner Details

Year Prize Author Association Paper
1990 1st ? ? ?
2nd Jackson, I
Mayes, KA
Canterbury
Canterbury, MCom
Staff Management and Trustbank
1988 1st Andrew Mason Auckland BE Speaker Matching Pdf
2nd Rachel Clarke Auckland BE Optimal planning of an x-ray diffractometer

Can you fill in missing details? If so, please contact Andrew Mason.

Prizes Awarded to Members

12 November 2007: Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) Fellowship for Professor David Ryan Professor David Ryan has become the second person in the southern hemisphere to be inducted as a Fellow of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). INFORMS is the world’s largest professional organisation in Operations Research. It has awarded a total of 249 Fellowships, but only 12 of those, including Professor Ryan’s, have gone to people outside of the United States. Professor Ryan received his award at a ceremony during the INFORMS Annual Meeting in Seattle last Monday, 5 November. The Fellow Award is reserved for distinguished individuals who have demonstrated outstanding and exceptional accomplishments and experience in operations research and the management sciences.Professor Ryan is Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and a Professor in the Department of Engineering Science. A leading authority on Operations Research in New Zealand, his research is concerned with mathematical programming and optimization theory, in particular scheduling, timetabling and combinatorial optimization problems. Professor Ryan was evaluated on the quality of his research, practice, management, education and service before receiving the INFORMS award. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand (2003).INFORMS Teaching Award 2003: In 2003, David was awarded the INFORMS Prize for the Teaching or OR/MS pracitioners. See “Ryan Educates, Inspires OR/MS Practioners” (local copy), OR/MS Today August 2003. David Ryan
16 November 2007: Michael Saunders, FSRNZ
On behalf of the members, the Operational Research Society of NZ wishes to congratulate long-standing society member Michael Saunders on being elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of NZ.Michael Saunders, a Research Professor in the Department of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University, is a world expert in the development of mathematical optimisation software, for solving decision problems in large interconnected systems.Professor Saunders began his work in this field while working for the DSIR in the 1970s, producing (in joint work with fellow New Zealander Bruce Murtagh) the MINOS system, which is now one of the best known optimisation packages worldwide, used by economists, engineers, physicists, and operations researchers. In more recent years he has developed a collection of optimisation tools (NPSOL, SNOPT, QPOPT, LSSOL) tailored to solve problems having certain structural features, with wide application in the engineering and aerospace communities. In particular, NPSOL is a key ingredient in the mesh-fitting routines used by the Auckland Bioengineering Institute, and in the optimising yacht velocity prediction program used by Team New Zealand in the successful 1995 America’s Cup challenge.He is a member of the International Scientific Advisory Board of the New Zealand Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, and is a leading supporter of the Operational Research Society of New Zealand, and a mentor for its members. His published work is very highly cited, and in 1985 he was awarded the inaugural Beale-Orchard Hays prize by the Mathematical Programming Society for his contributions to computational optimisation.
Mike Saunders with his daughters Emily and Tania, Dec 2005
May 2009: Edelman Finalists Philpott and Everett
ORSNZ members Andy Philpott (University of Auckland) and Graeme Everett (Norske Skog) were Finalists in the 2009 INFORMS Franz Edelman competition. (The competition was won by Hewlett Packard.)Official INFORMS photos can be found at http://www.scienceofbetter.org/Edelman. You can also view photos of the INFORMS meeting taken by members of the Norske Skog team, and visit the Flickr photo page.This work was written up in the New York based BusinessWeek magazine; view the article. Andy spoke on Radio NZ’s 9-noon slot on Monday 11 May; listen again in MP3 or OGG format. Andy was also interviewed on TVNZ’s Morning TV program on Wednesday 13 May (TVNZ Screenshot) with the byline:”A couple of Kiwi maths experts have won plaudits in the international business media with its model to better pin point loss making parts of businesses. Mathematician Professor Andy Philpott explains.” View Flash Video.
Informs Logo
Norske Skog team
BusinessWeek logoTVNZ NZI Banner