Dimitris Bertsimas and a team he led with MIT students and researchers from Janssen Research & Development, who developed the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, has received the 2021 Innovative Applications in Analytics Award (First Place) from INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences). The award, sponsored by the Analytics Society of INFORMS, Kinaxis, and Adelphi University, recognizes the creative and unique application of a combination of analytical techniques in a new area.
In their winning application, entitled “Data-driven COVID-19 Vaccine Development for Janssen,” Bertsimas’s team guided Johnson & Johnson on where to perform the clinical trials for its COVID-19 vaccine. The team also included Michael Lingzhi Li (MIT PhD student advised by Bertsimas) and Omar Skali Lami (MIT PhD student advised by both Bertsimas and Georgia Perakis); Hamza Tazi Bouardi (BCG GAMMA; MIT MBAn ’20, formerly advised by Bertsimas); Ali Haddad-Sisakht (Dynamic Ideas, LLC); and Najat Khan, Jennings Xu, Jose Zamalloa, Amir Hashemi, Ankit Lodha, Yuqi Shang, Kris Standish, Shi-hua Yu, Levon Demirdjian, Xiaoying Wu, and Sid Jain (all from Janssen Pharmaceuticals).
The award was announced at the Virtual 2021 INFORMS Business Analytics Conference. More details can be found in this MIT News article.