The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented global event that for more than a year now has completed transformed nearly every aspect of our day-to-day lives.

For most of us, the pandemic is unlike anything we’ve ever experienced, with comparisons frequently made to the Spanish Influenza outbreak more than a century ago.

But in certain parts of the world, the potential danger presented by the coronavirus was identified and responded too far earlier than in others. And it wasn’t only government officials and decision-makers sharing these realizations, but average people, like you and me.

My guest for today’s episode is Hong Ru, professor with Nanyang Technological University.  Along with his fellow study authors, Hong identified a shared experience that enabled certain countries to recognize and respond to the significant danger of the coronavirus threat earlier than others.

This study, “Combatting the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of the SARS Imprint,” which will be published later this year in the INFORMS journal Management Science, investigates how previous experience with the 2003 SARS outbreak led to a quicker response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

From the moment the earliest cases of the coronavirus were detected in the U.S., the ability to test for and track infection rates and cases has been one of the most significant tools in combatting the virus, and played an essential role in developing guidelines and policies to reduce its spread. And today, testing paired with increasing access to vaccines, continues to play an important role in our gradual reopening and return to normal.

To take a look back over the types of testing, their levels of accuracy, how they developed and their impact, I am pleased to welcome my guests for today’s episode, Kimon Drakopoulos and Ramandeep Randhawa, both professors with the department of data sciences and operations, Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. We will be discussing their study, “Why Perfect Tests May Not be Worth Waiting for: Information as a Commodity,” which took place during the pandemic and will be published in the INFORMS journal Management Science.

The past year has posed many unprecedented and unique challenges, forcing people around the world to redefine and reimagine how we live, work, learn, teach, shop and more. It tested the resiliency of the global economy, the fundamentals of business, and countless other parts of modern life that we all took for granted. 

Many of these challenges brought to the forefront an often invisible resource that powers virtually every aspect of modern life – global supply chains. Now, the U.S. government, many businesses and industries, and numerous others, are undertaking extensive efforts to examine supply chains to ensure they can better withstand the intense pressures and strains of massive challenges such as COVID-19.

Joining me for this episode is David Simchi-Levi, a professor of civil and environmental engineering in MIT’s department of civil and environmental engineering and the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, and director of the MIT Data Science Lab.

For more than four decades, winners of the Edelman Award have been recognized for transforming how we approach some of the world’s most complex problems. This year’s finalists are no exception, with revolutionary contributions in robotics, cancer radiotherapy efficiency, unmanned warehouse technology, mining efficiency and the impact to chemical facilities, scheduling and production at manufacturing plants, and food assistance amid emergency responses. Since its inception, finalists for the Edelman Award have contributed to a cumulative impact of over $302 billion, supported lifesaving efforts across the globe, and transformed how the world does business.

Joining me for this episode to discuss Memorial Sloan Kettering’s finalist entry for the 2021 Franz Edelman Award are Dr. Joseph Deasy, the chair of the department of medical physics at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Masoud Zarepisheh, lead developer of the project we’ll be discussing, and Linda Hong, clinical medical physics lead of this project.

For more than four decades, winners of the Edelman Award have been recognized for transforming how we approach some of the world’s most complex problems. This year’s finalists are no exception, with revolutionary contributions in robotics, cancer radiotherapy efficiency, unmanned warehouse technology, mining efficiency and the impact to chemical facilities, scheduling and production at manufacturing plants, and food assistance amid emergency responses. Since its inception, finalists for the Edelman Award have contributed to a cumulative impact of over $302 billion, supported lifesaving efforts across the globe, and transformed how the world does business.

Joining me for this episode are Xinhui Zhang, Alibaba’s senior director, head of supply chain management and operations research committee, and Haoyuan Hu, Alibaba’s head of the AI department, Cainiao Network, to discuss their team's finalist entry for the 2021 Franz Edelman Award.

For more than four decades, winners of the Edelman Award have been recognized for transforming how we approach some of the world’s most complex problems. This year’s finalists are no exception, with revolutionary contributions in robotics, cancer radiotherapy efficiency, unmanned warehouse technology, mining efficiency and the impact to chemical facilities, scheduling and production at manufacturing plants, and food assistance amid emergency responses. Since its inception, finalists for the Edelman Award have contributed to a cumulative impact of over $302 billion, supported lifesaving efforts across the globe, and transformed how the world does business.

Joining me for this episode are Dr. Yong Rui, senior vice president and chief technology officer of Lenovo, and Dr. Wei Fan, director of the machine learning team with Lenovo Research, to discuss their team’s finalist entry for the 2021 competition.

For more than four decades, winners of the Edelman Award have been recognized for transforming how we approach some of the world’s most complex problems. This year’s finalists are no exception, with revolutionary contributions in robotics, cancer radiotherapy efficiency, unmanned warehouse technology, mining efficiency and the impact to chemical facilities, scheduling and production at manufacturing plants, and food assistance amid emergency responses. Since its inception, finalists for the Edelman Award have contributed to a cumulative impact of over $302 billion, supported lifesaving efforts across the globe, and transformed how the world does business.

Joining me for this episode are Dimitris Bertsimas, Boeing Professor of Operations Research and associate dean of business analytics at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and Nada El Majdoub, executive vice president of performance management at OCP, to discuss their team’s finalist entry for the 2021 competition.

For more than four decades, winners of the Edelman Award have been recognized for transforming how we approach some of the world’s most complex problems. This year’s finalists are no exception, with revolutionary contributions in robotics, cancer radiotherapy efficiency, unmanned warehouse technology, mining efficiency and the impact to chemical facilities, scheduling and production at manufacturing plants, and food assistance amid emergency responses. Since its inception, finalists for the Edelman Award have contributed to a cumulative impact of over $302 billion, supported lifesaving efforts across the globe, and transformed how the world does business.

Joining me for this episode are Hengle Qin, director of operations research, JD Logistics at JD.com, Linwei Xin, assistant professor of operations management at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago, to discuss their team’s finalist entry for the 2021 competition.

For more than four decades, winners of the Edelman Award have been recognized for transforming how we approach some of the world’s most complex problems. This year’s finalists are no exception, with revolutionary contributions in robotics, cancer radiotherapy efficiency, unmanned warehouse technology, mining efficiency and the impact to chemical facilities, scheduling and production at manufacturing plants, and food assistance amid emergency responses. Since its inception, finalists for the Edelman Award have contributed to a cumulative impact of over $302 billion, supported lifesaving efforts across the globe, and transformed how the world does business.

Joining me for this episode is Koen Peters, head of optimization for the United Nations World Food Programme’s Supply Chain Planning & Optimization Unit, and part-time Ph.D. researcher at Tilburg University’s Zero Hunger Lab, to discuss his team’s finalist entry for the 2021 competition.

Top of the line! Novel new features! Can’t live without convenience! When it comes to new products, there seems to be no limit to the different varieties and options, even within the same class of items (if you have ever had to purchase a new appliance, you know what I’m talking about).

But what makes certain products stand out from others, and ultimately realize more commercial success for their developers?

Joining me to share their research in this area is Yonghoon Lee with The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Tian Chan with Emory University. Their study, “Anchored Differentiation: The Role of Temporal Distance in the Comparison and Evaluation of New Product Designs,” selected for publication in the INFORMS journal Organization Science, looks at how consumers evaluate new product designs and how this can benefit product designers.