Mathematical Programming Society

Mathematical Programming Society
Name	Mathematical Programming Society
Founded	1973
Type	Professional society
Headquarters	Hanover, New Hampshire
Region served	International
Language	English
Leader title	President

Contents

Mathematical Programming Society is an international professional association devoted to research and dissemination in Mathematical optimization, Operations research, and related areas of Applied mathematics. The society fosters links among researchers associated with institutions such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, Princeton University, Harvard University and industrial laboratories including Bell Labs, IBM Research, AT&T Laboratories. Its activities intersect with conferences and awards maintained by groups like the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, INFORMS, European Mathematical Society and national academies such as the National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society.

History

The society traces origins to early work by figures affiliated with John von Neumann-era institutions and postwar centers including RAND Corporation, Brookings Institution, and Bell Telephone Laboratories. Founding members included researchers connected to universities like University of California, Berkeley, University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, University of Michigan, and University of Wisconsin–Madison. Early milestones paralleled developments at events such as the International Congress of Mathematicians and collaborations with organizers of the SIAM Annual Meeting, IFORS Triennial Conference, and meetings at the Institute for Advanced Study. Over decades the society adapted alongside breakthroughs by scholars at Columbia University, Yale University, Cornell University, Caltech, and University of Toronto and influenced curricula at institutions including Imperial College London and École Polytechnique. Its maturation reflected contributions from awardees associated with the Fields Medal, Turing Award, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences laureates, and recipients of national honors such as the National Medal of Science.

The society's mission aligns with objectives promoted by international bodies such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and regional groups like the European Commission for supporting research infrastructure. Primary goals include promoting rigorous scholarship linked to journals operated by publishers like Springer Science+Business Media and Elsevier, encouraging education at universities such as University of Oxford and Technische Universität München, and fostering outreach with foundations like the Simons Foundation and Guggenheim Foundation. It emphasizes standards consistent with prize committees of Abel Prize, Wolf Prize, and coordination with panels at institutions like the Royal Society of Canada.

Membership draws academics and practitioners from departments at University of Pennsylvania, University College London, McGill University, University of British Columbia, and corporations like Google, Microsoft Research, Amazon, Siemens, and General Electric. Governance is overseen via elected officers modeled after structures at American Mathematical Society and Mathematical Association of America, with councils and committees paralleling those at European Mathematical Society and Association for Computing Machinery. Election cycles and procedures reference protocols used by bodies including the National Science Foundation panels and national academies such as the French Academy of Sciences and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.

The society sponsors flagship journals comparable to titles published by Springer, Wiley-Blackwell, and Cambridge University Press, and collaborates with editorial boards containing scholars from Columbia University, Duke University, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Pennsylvania State University, and Ohio State University. Its periodicals have published papers by contributors affiliated with Princeton University, New York University, Northwestern University, University of Washington, and University of Melbourne. Archives and special issues have highlighted work related to algorithms developed at Bell Labs, IBM Research, and research groups at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories.

Major conference series are held at venues including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Cambridge (UK), and University of Tokyo. Workshops and symposia collaborate with meetings like the International Symposium on Mathematical Programming, the SIAM Conference on Optimization, and gatherings organized by IFORS and INFORMS. Special sessions feature speakers from institutions such as Columbia University, Stanford University, Yale University, Brown University, Rutgers University, and national laboratories including Argonne National Laboratory.

The society administers awards that recognize contributions comparable to prizes from European Research Council, John von Neumann Theory Prize, and other honors such as the Fulkerson Prize and distinctions akin to the Padua Prize in related fields. Laureates have included researchers with affiliations to Harvard University, MIT, Princeton University, University of California, Berkeley, University of Chicago, and University of Cambridge. Award ceremonies often occur alongside major conferences and are reported in outlets including Notices of the American Mathematical Society and bulletins associated with the Royal Statistical Society.

The society collaborates with universities and organizations such as ETH Zurich, INRIA, Max Planck Society, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CNRS, CERN, and industrial partners like Toyota, Intel, and Boeing. Its influence is evident in curriculum development at Princeton University, algorithmic advances credited to teams at Google Research and Microsoft Research, and deployment of optimization techniques in engineering projects at NASA, European Space Agency, and infrastructure programs guided by agencies such as the U.S. Department of Energy. Cross-disciplinary impact reaches researchers in economics at London School of Economics, computer science at University of Toronto, and statistics at University of California, Berkeley.