Student Travel Support for the 2008 INFORMS Southwest Regional Conference; College Station, Texas; April 18-19, 2008

该奖项为学生参加INFORMS（运筹学与管理科学研究所）西南地区会议提供旅费支持，该会议将在德克萨斯州大学城的德克萨斯农工大学举行。会议定于2008年4月18日至19日举行。会议的形式与INFORMS大会非常相似。它包括全体发言人、讨论小组、教程和技术会议。这次专业会议的旅行支持将在各个方面使学生受益。首先，他们将有机会传播他们的研究，并与该地区的其他研究人员建立关系。其次，他们将在建立促进OR/MS专业的学生和区域组织方面获得宝贵的基于经验的知识。第三，它将有助于培养学生成为未来的院士和从业者的专业准备。他们将有机会与在这两个领域经验丰富的同事以及其他学生进行互动。最后，作为一个区域性会议，其规模相对比年度INFORMS会议小得多，学生将有更多的机会有效和高效地实现上述概述的目标。此外，本次会议的旅费支持将为一些没有参加年度会议的学生提供信息系统会议经验，并促进代表性不足的群体更积极地参与此类活动。

This award provides funding for travel support for students to attend the INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences) Southwest Regional Conference at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. The conference is scheduled to take place on April 18-19, 2008. The format of the conference is very similar to that of an INFORMS General Meeting. It comprises plenary speaker(s), discussion panels, tutorials, and technical sessions. Travel support to this professional conference will benefit students in various dimensions. First, they will have the opportunity to disseminate their research and establish relationships with other researchers in the region. Second, they will gain invaluable experience-based knowledge in establishing student and regional organizations that promote the OR/MS profession. Third, it will help foster the professional preparation of students as future academicians and practitioners. They will have the opportunity to interact with several experienced colleagues in both domains as well as with other students. Lastly, being a regional conference of relatively a much smaller size than an annual INFORMS meeting, the students will have much more significant opportunity to achieve their above outlined objectives effectively and efficiently. In addition, travel support to this conference will provide an INFORMS conference experience to several students who do not attend the annual meetings as well as facilitate a more significant involvement of underrepresented groups in such events.