Ph.D. Assistant Professor of has been awarded the 2011 David Rist Prize by the Military Operations Research Society (MORS). The David Rist Prize is named for and in honor of Mr. Rist, an early Director of the Society.
MORS was established in 1966 by pioneers from the national security analytic community. These leaders recognized the importance of pooling intellectual and other resources to advance the research and the implementation of research to in the best interest of national security.
The David Rist Prize recognizes the practical benefit sound operations research can have on "real life" decision-making and seeks the best-implemented military operations research. The award illuminates research that has been implemented and makes a practical impact in the national security sector.
The prize winning project "Software Assistants for Patrol Planning at LAX, Federal Air Marshals Service (FAMS), and Transportation Security" is a result of collaborative work between Professor Milind Tambe, Professor Fernando Ordonez, Mr. Manish Jain, Mr. James Pita, Professor Christopher Kiekintveld, Mr. Erroll Southers and Mr.James B. Curren.
In addition to receiving Rist Prize, Christopher Kiekintveld, James Pita, Milind Tambe, Shane Cullen, Erin Steigerwald were awarded Best Paper in the Innovative Applications track of the International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS) 2011 for their paper "GUARDS- Game Theoretic Security Allocation on a National Scale." Professor Kiekintveld also won Best Paper Award at the AAMAS in 2009.