Michael Fu receives INFORMS George E. Kimball Medal

Professor Michael Fu (BMGT/ISR) is one of two recipients of the 2022 INFORMS George E. Kimball Medal. The medals were awarded at the 2022 INFORMS Annual Meeting, Oct. 16-19 in Indianapolis. INFORMS is the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences, the leading international association for operations research & analytics professionals. Fu and Ranganath Nuggehalli, Principal Scientist of UPS, received the honor in recognition of distinguished service to INFORMS and to the profession of operations research and the management sciences.

The awards program notes:

“Michael Fu is an exemplary academic when it comes to professional service – a model for young academics to emulate. He has served in numerous distinct and significant roles both within INFORMS and across the broader operations research community. He has served on numerous journal editorial boards for INFORMS journals (including the Operations Research Simulation Area Editor and the Management Science Stochastic Models and Simulation Department Editor). He has undertaken leadership roles for numerous INFORMS conferences, including serving as the general co-chair of the 2020 INFORMS Annual Meeting, cluster chair for the 2018 INFORMS International Conference, and program chair for the 2011 Winter Simulation Conference (WSC). He also served on the INFORMS Board of Directors from 2017-2018 as treasurer. He has provided tireless service to the broader INFORMS and international communities, including serving as the NSF Program Director for Operations Research. Michael’s altruistic character traits that permeate his personal life are the very same ones that have made him a valuable and dedicated contributor to INFORMS.”

Fu is the Smith Chair of Management Science chair in the Robert H. Smith School of Business and a UMD Distinguished Scholar-Teacher. He served as operations research program director at the National Science Foundation from 2010 to 2012 and again in 2015. Fu is a Fellow of INFORMS and the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). In 2018 he received the INFORMS Simulation Society's Distinguished Service Award.

His research interests include simulation modeling and analysis, production/inventory control, applied probability and queueing theory, with application to manufacturing, supply chain management, and financial engineering.

Recently, Fu began working to model networks related to organ transplants. In 2021 he joined a group of researchers hoping to improve patient access to and options for kidney transplants in a four-year NSF Smart and Connected Health grant funded at close to $1 million. The scientists are seeking to enhance the transplant system by combining a personalized antibody removal regimen known as “desensitization” into a kidney paired donation system, improving both access and decision-making.

This fall he received a portion of $1M in NSF funding as part of a team working to study, model, and disrupt international illicit kidney trafficking networks. Kidneys are by far the most traded organ in organ trafﬁcking, a lesser known yet insidious form of human trafﬁcking that predominantly preys upon the poor and vulnerable, whose desperate conditions are illegally exploited for quick proﬁt, often leaving them with severely debilitated health.

Published November 15, 2022