Blumstein receives INFORMS Lectureship Award
Al Blumstein, J. Erik Jonsson University Professor of Urban Systems and Operations Research and former Dean of the Heinz School, is the recipient of the Philip McCord Morse Lectureship Award from Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). The Lectureship is awarded in honor of Philip McCord Morse in recognition of his pioneer contribution to the field of operations research and the management sciences. The award is given in odd-numbered years at the National Meeting if there is a suitable recipient. The term of the lectureship is two years.
This prestigious award is the latest in a long list of awards and recognitions for Professor Blumstein. He was president of the Operations Research Society of America (ORSA) in 1977-78, and received ORSA's Kimball Medal "for service to the profession and the society" in 1985 and its President's Award in 1993 "for service to society." He is a fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the American Society of Criminology, which awarded him its Sutherland Award for "contributions to research" in 1987. In 1996, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York. He was awarded the Wolfgang Award for Distinguished Achievement in Criminology in 1998 and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1998.
Professor Blumstein's research over the past twenty years has covered many aspects of criminal justice phenomena and policy, including crime measurement, criminal careers, sentencing, deterrence and incapacitation, prison populations, flow through the system, demographic trends, juvenile violence and drug-enforcement policy. He is also director of the National Consortium on Violence Research (NCOVR), a multi-university initiative funded by the National Science Foundation and headquartered at the Heinz School.