NFL Study Wins INFORMS Competition

NFL schedule.

Kyle Cunningham's (2014 BSIE) paper "Alleviating Competitive Imbalances in NFL Schedules: An Integer-Programming Approach" has been selected as a the winner of the 2015 INFORMS Undergraduate Operations Research Prize.

Mr. Cunningham received the award at the 2015 INFORMS conference in Philadelphia, PA on November 1. 

The paper, co-written by ISE PhD Student Niraj Pandey with faculty advisors Mark Karwan and Murat Kurt was one of eight, out of 200, selected to be presented at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in Boston. The paper's results - showing an imbalance in how teams were assigned more rested competitors (particularly for the Buffalo Bills) - were widely reported in the national press including ABC, Fox News, and CBS News in Boston and Dallas. It was selected as the "fan favorite" in an ESPN competition affiliated with the conference.

For more information on the INFORMS competition, see https://www.informs.org/Recognizing-Excellence/INFORMS-Prizes/Undergraduate-Operations-Research-Prize.