Operations Research
Optimize, Simulate, Understand
I bet you were not expecting a photo of 22 youngsters in swimsuits in a math blog, were you? The first time I heard about this reality TV show called "Are You The One?", my nerdiness and love for OR yelled at me: "There is so much math in this

Ballpark Chasers A cross-country trip is pretty much an all-American experience, and so is baseball. Traveling around the country to see all 30 Major League Baseball (MLB) stadiums is not a new idea; there's even a social network between so-called "Ballpark Chasers" where people communicate and share their journeys. Even

When I shared a status update a few months ago that I would spend my Sunday morning "trying to solve an asymmetric prize-collecting traveling salesman problem with uncertain data and side constraints" my colleagues knew that I wouldn't be working. Instead, I would spend my morning at an orienteering event,

SAS will be represented by more than 20 attendees at the INFORMS Annual Meeting at the George R. Brown Convention Center (GBCC) in Houston, Texas. Officially the conference runs from Sunday, Oct. 22 through Wednesday, Oct. 25, but our activities in Houston start even earlier. Technology Workshops on Saturday, October

I sit here fascinated, watching a world population clock. According to the US Census, a baby is born and a person dies every 7 and 12 seconds, respectively, in the United States. In 1950 our world had about 2.5 billion people; currently our population is over 7.3 billion. Estimates predict

Tomorrow is Independence Day, a federal holiday in the United States. Flags are displayed everywhere, especially in Washington, D.C., where I live. So let's have a little Fun with Flags! The current U.S. flag has 50 stars, one per state, with five rows of six stars interleaved with four rows