BALTIMORE, MD, October 31, 2024 – INFORMS, the leading international association for professionals in operations research, analytics, management science, economics, behavioral science, statistics, artificial intelligence, data science, applied mathematics and other relevant fields, announced that Mark E. Lewis, Maxwell M. Upson Professor of Engineering at Cornell University, has been elected the 2026 INFORMS president.
Lewis, who was named an INFORMS Fellow in 2021, will join the board of directors as president-elect in January 2025 and will then serve as president and past president in 2026 and 2027, respectively. He currently serves on the INFORMS board of directors as secretary, a position he has held since 2022. Lewis is the first African American elected as INFORMS president-elect.
Lewis has also served INFORMS in numerous other capacities, including co-founder and president (twice) of the organization’s Minority Issues Forum. He is a past chair of the INFORMS Applied Probability Society and has served on several other INFORMS committees. Lewis has also earned multiple INFORMS awards and honors for his tireless service and extensive contributions to INFORMS, including being named to the inaugural class of the INFORMS Minority Issues Forum fellows.
Professionally, Lewis’ research and expertise is primarily in the dynamic control of service systems. He applies his work in routing to transportation systems, control of inventory systems and allocation of interswitch handoffs in wireless communication. He is also passionate about solving general problems in resource allocation. During his current sabbatical from the School of Operations Research and Information Engineering at Cornell, Professor Lewis is working as an Amazon Scholar on pricing and logistics.
“I am heartened and excited to have been elected INFORMS president,” Lewis said. “One of the many responsibilities of this position is to serve as a role model for those up-and-coming students and young professionals. I hope that as the first African American in this role, I can help inspire more people of color to choose to make INFORMS their professional community. Together, we can continue to make INFORMS a strong, vibrant and successful organization for generations to come.”
INFORMS Executive Director Elena Gerstmann, Ph.D., also lauded Lewis’ election, stating, “Mark’s contributions will continue to be an invaluable part of INFORMS’ success, and I look forward to continuing to work with him over the next three years to increase the impact of INFORMS and strive to make the world a more just, prosperous and sustainable place through better decision-making.”
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About INFORMS
INFORMS advances and promotes the science and technology of decision-making to save lives, save money and solve problems. INFORMS members support organizations and governments at all levels as they work to transform data into information, and information into insights that lead to more efficient, effective, equitable and impactful results. INFORMS’ 12,000+ members comprise a diverse and robust international community of practitioners, researchers, educators and students from a variety of fields.
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Ashley Smith
443-757-3578
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Media Contact
Ashley Smith
Public Affairs Coordinator
INFORMS
Catonsville, MD
[email protected]
443-757-3578