Professor Gilbert Laporte, an eminent researcher in the field of operations research and quantitative methods, has been elected a Fellow of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences in recognition of his significant contribution in this field. Professor Laporte, holder of the Canada Research Chair in Distribution Management, was honoured at a ceremony during the Institute’s annual conference, on November 14, in San Francisco.
Influential work
The honour was conferred on Professor Laporte not only in recognition of his exceptional contributions in theoretical and empirical research and university teaching, but also for the applicability of his research work.
Over the past 30 years, Professor Laporte has developed original optimization methods with applications to work scheduling, optimizing distribution routes for the shipping of goods, locating franchises in highly competitive contexts and automatically designing electoral maps. Scientists worldwide cite and use his work, much of it highly influential. He has also designed software, some of it distributed around the world.
Contributions recognized by many awards and distinctions
The originality and scope of his scientific output in operational research have earned him many honours, including the highest distinction from the Canadian Operational Research Society, its Award of Merit, for the body of his scientific work.
More recently, in 2005, Professor Laporte received the 2004 Glover-Klingman Award, recognizing the best article* published in the Networks journal in 2004, and the TSL Best Paper Award from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (Transportation Science and Logistics Section), in 2004, for the best article** over the last three years in the field of transportation. On November 2 of this year, he received the Pierre-Laurin Award from HEC Montréal, saluting the research work by a full professor over the past three years.
These many research awards should not overshadow Gilbert Laporte’s contributions as a teacher. His skills are greatly appreciated by his students, so much so that he was the winner of the 2001 HEC Montréal Teaching Award.
Professor Laporte holds a PhD (Operational Research) from the London School of Economics. He was elected to the Académie des lettres et des sciences humaines of the Royal Society of Canada in 1998.
* The Ring Star Problem: Polyhedral Analysis and Exact Algorithm, co-authored with Martine Labbé, of the Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium, and Juan José Salazar González and Inmaculada Rodríguez Martín, both of the Universidad de La Laguna, Spain.
** An Integer L-Shaped Algorithm for the Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem with Stochastic Demands, co-authored with François V. Louveaux, Professor, of the Facultés universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix, Namur, France, and Luc Van hamme, Analyst, OM Partners, Brasschaat, Belgium, published in Operations Research.
