Stephen C. Graves

Professor Stephen Graves and Jonathan Owen of General Motors have both been awarded the 2023 George E. Kimball Medal for their distinguished service to the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), as well as to the profession of operations research and management sciences.

According to an INFORMS press release, both recipients have been "standout members of INFORMS" and are INFORMS Fellows.

Graves was the 2021 INFORMS President and served as the editor-in-chief of Manufacturing & Service Operations Management. He was also the functional area editor and editor of the Edelman Special Issues of INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics.

“INFORMS is extremely appreciative of the contributions of Owen and Graves, and their dedication to our organization and the profession of operations research and the management sciences,” said Elena Gerstmann, INFORMS executive director, in the press release.

Visit the INFORMS website for more information.

 Stephen Graves has been elected president-elect of INFORMs and will serve as its president in 2021. Graves is the Abraham J. Siegel Professor of Management and a professor of operations management at MIT Sloan, and his research focuses on supply-chain optimization, manufacturing flexibility and tactical issues in online retailing. Graves has been a member of INFORMS since he joined as a student in 1974. According to INFORMS, it is the largest international association of operations research and analytics professionals and students.

Steve Graves has been elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for his “contributions to the modeling and analysis of manufacturing systems and supply chains.” Considered among the highest professional distinctions for an engineer, election to the NAE honors outstanding contributions to “engineering research, practice, or education, including … significant contributions to the engineering literature” and to “the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education.”

The newly elected NAE class of 2018 will be formally inducted in Washington, D.C., later this year.

Steve Graves has received the INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences) Manufacturing and Service Operations Management Society’s 2017 Manufacturing & Service Operations Management Best Paper Award. This annual award recognizes a paper, from among those published in the prior three volumes of Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, for its contribution to the theory and practice of operations management.

The winning paper, co-authored with Jason Acimovic (Penn State University Smeal College of Business and past MIT Operations Research Center doctoral student), is entitled “Making Better Fulfillment Decisions on the Fly in an Online Retail Environment” (Manufacturing & Service Operations Management 17(1):34-51).

The award was presented at the Manufacturing and Service Operations Management Society’s business meeting during the 2017 INFORMS annual meeting in Houston.