2007 Ramsey Medal Award

Good afternoon. I am Ralph Keeney, the chair of this year’s Ramsey Medal Committee. The Frank P. Ramsey Medal is the most prestigious honor that the Decision Analysis Society awards. It is at most, and usually, awarded annually. This year’s Ramsey Medal Committee to select an individual for the award consisted of James Dyer, Ron Howard, Greg Parnell, Larry Phillips and me. We openly solicited nominations from the society and 24 were received. The committee members proceeded with two rounds of evaluations to select a recipient. As has been publicized, this year’s recipient is Professor Craig Kirkwood.

Citation for Professor Craig W. Kirkwood

The Frank P. Ramsey Medal is awarded by the Decision Analysis Society of INFORMS for distinguished contributions in decision analysis. The individual we honor today, Craig W. Kirkwood of Arizona State University, has made and continues to make many significant contributions. Specifically, Professor Kirkwood has made contributions in several categories: contributions to the methodology of decision analysis, applications, promoting the field through education and speaking, and service to our society.

Professor Kirkwood’s methodological contributions have included models of preferences involving multiple objectives, decision analysis for groups, and computer programs to facilitate learning and applying decision analysis. Just last year, his coauthored paper with Robert Bordley titled “Multiattribute preference analysis with performance targets” was selected for the DAS publication award for the best paper published in 2004.

Professor Kirkwood has a long history of applying decision analysis to important, and sometimes novel, decision problems. For five years, he took a sabbatical from academics and worked full time in a consulting firm applying decision analysis. All of this experience provided a foundation for his book Strategic Decision Making: Multiobjective Decision Analysis with Spreadsheets published in 1997. His joint work with M.P. Slaven and A. Maltz described in the paper titled “Improving Supply-Chain-Reconfiguration Decisions at IBM” was awarded the 2004 Decision Analysis Society Practice Award.

Professor Kirkwood has served our society in about all possible ways including editorial service, being on numerous committees, as a council member, and currently as the President.

For his numerous contributions to decision analysis, it is my pleasure to present the 2007 Frank P. Ramsey Medal to Professor Craig W. Kirkwood.

James Dyer, Ron Howard, Greg Parnell, Larry Phillips and Ralph Keeney (chair)