Boeing CORMSIS MSc Prizegiving 2021

The Centre for Operational Research, Management Science and Information Systems (CORMSIS) held its annual Boeing Prizegiving on Thursday 11 March 2021 for students on CORMSIS postgraduate programmes 2019-2020. This is usually held face to face, but, because of COVID, on this occasion it was conducted via ZOOM.

The Boeing Prizegiving is a highlight of the year, celebrating MSc summer project/dissertation success with students, sponsors and academics.  We had a cohort of 329 MSc students 2019-2020, our largest student cohort to date. We were delighted that our prize winners were able to achieve such high-quality projects/dissertations during the COVID pandemic. 

Boeing is a Corporate Partner of the University of Southampton and CORMSIS was delighted to welcome Sham Musthapha to the event.  Sham oversees the University of Southampton / Boeing philanthropic relationship and is also chair of the CORMSIS Business Advisory Board. Sham commented: “Boeing is a proud sponsor of CORMSIS awards going back many years. It is so important to recognise young talent to help inspire others to follow careers in STEM. Diversity creates an environment where great new ideas and innovation happen and this was truly demonstrated by all the extremely engaging presentations. I see this as one of CORMSIS’ key strengths and I feel very honoured to be a part of it.”

Winning projects tackled important and contemporary issues such as plastic waste, air pollution, gender and ethnicity, deforestation and data migration in industry sectors such as telecommunications, space, finance and manufacturing.   Students attending the event were either from, or now based in, the UK, China, Japan, Thailand, Germany, Malaysia and America.  Employers included PwC, KPMG, JP Morgan, Burberry and Zeller and Gmelin, and one is pursuing a PhD in Southampton.

Sham awarded two CORMSIS Boeing Scholarships to current students Laura Hannula (MSc Operational Research) and Alexander Hayes (MSc Business Analytics & Management Sciences). Boeing dissertation prize winners were given five minutes to showcase their findings during the event.  Here is the full list of prize winners represented:

Akira Inaba

Alexander Heib - winner of the Maths Operational Research Impact Prize 2021

Antony Hutt

Dongliang Guo

Mary-Elizabeth Voss

Witaya Bamrungpong - winner of the Maths Operational Research Boeing Prize 2021

Xiao Wen Teh

Yang Wang – winner of the Southampton Business School Boeing Prize 2021

Zhihuan Chen (Christina)

Zhuoqiong Mo (Joan) – winner of the Southampton Business School Impact Prize 2021

Dr Stefano Coniglio, Associate Professor in Operational Research, who supervised Akira, Mary-Elizabeth and Xiao Wen, commented: “supervising three of the 2019-2020 prize winners has been both an honour and a pleasure; their academic skills and the keen interest they showed in their research project is a testament to the quality of the students the MSc programmes we offer in Southampton can attract.”

This response was mirrored in feedback from an external project sponsor 2020: “I was extremely impressed by Alex's efforts throughout the project, from the initial grasping of the complex problem space, the development of model structures, the mathematical formulation, defining scenarios to model, drawing conclusions from the model results and the presentation of these results and conclusions to my colleagues within the company”

The prizegiving was attended by both the Head of Southampton Business School (SBS), Professor Laura Costanzo, and the Head of Mathematical Sciences, Professor Marika Taylor. Professor Martin Kunc, SBS Head of Department of Decision Analytics and Risk commented: “while we could not meet in person this year, the prizegiving event has been very engaging with excellent presentations demonstrating the quality of the MSc dissertations. Hopefully, we will be able to do a blended event next year so we can invite more participants to join the event in a virtual way.”

 The prizegiving event was hosted by Dr Toni Martinez Sykora, Director of CORMSIS, and Peter Becque, CORMSIS Industry Liaison Officer, and supported by Katie Broad and Julie Hickman.

Thanks once again to Boeing and Sham for your ongoing support.

For more information regarding CORMSIS MSc programmes and research activity, visit the CORMSIS website www.soton.ac.uk/cormsis.  To sponsor a CORMSIS MSc student project to support your organisation, email Julie Hickman jh1e15@soton.ac.uk to find out more.

Statistics & Operational Research at Southampton ranked 33th (World) and 7th (UK) 2021

Source: QS World University Rankings 2021