INFORMS Dissertation Prize goes to WHU Doctoral student

Recent doctoral programme graduate Jan-Rasmus Künnen was announced being the winner of this year's INFORMS AAS Best Dissertation prize, for his dissertation on "Advanced demand-capacity balancing mechanisms to improve performance of European air traffic networks". The prize was awarded by INFORMS' Aviation Application Section at the INFORMS 2023 Annual Meeting in Phoenix, Arizona. It recognises research in the application of Operational Research and related approaches to aviation. The Award Committee consisted of Prof Vikrant Vaze, Dartmouth College (chair); Prof Alexander Estes, University of Maryland; and Prof Milind Sohoni, Indian School of Business.

In his dissertation, he developed and tested optimization models for Air Traffic Management to reduce the level of demand-capacity imbalances observed in the European network, as part of the Horizon 2020 research project CADENZA at the Chair of Prof Arne Strauss. We investigated mechanisms that help (1) steer demand more efficiently and (2) improve airspace capacity to improve overall network performance and reduce flight emissions.

The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) is the leading international society for academics and practitioners in the fields of operations research (O.R.), management science, and analytics. Its annual conference typically draws 5000-6000 participants from all over the world.