October 18, 2006 — Epstein chair Professor Sheldon M. Ross has received the 2006 Expository Writing Award from the Institute For Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS).  The award consists of a framed citation and a monetary award of $2000, which will be presented at the INFORMS Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh, PA on Monday, November 6th, 2006.  The Award Ceremony will take place on Monday evening after the Welcome Reception at the Carnegie Museum.

"The INFORMS Expository Writing Award honors an operations researcher/management scientist whose publications demonstrate a consistently high standard of expository writing.  ...  This award recognizes an author whose publications in operations research and management science have set an exemplary standard of exposition. The awardee's written work, published over a period of at least ten years, should indicate (in terms of breadth of readership) an influence and accessibility enhanced by expository excellence. Criteria include the lucidity, conciseness, logic and interest of the writing at all levels, from the general organization to the details. The author must have affected, through these publications, how something is done, studied, taught, or thought about by some group within the OR/MS community.

The written work can contain any combination of practical, theoretical and pedagogical subject matter, and may be original, synthetic or historical. The corpus as a whole must be substantial in content, but its substantive contribution need not necessarily be prize-worthy in itself."  From informs.org, click for full.
 
Professor Ross has written numerous books on probability and stochastic processes, as well as on applications of probability to finance, simulation, computer science, optimization, and quality control.  (See the list below).  His text books are used in most operations research programs in the United States, and in many throughout the world.  At least two have been translated into Spanish (Simulacion and Probabilidad y Estadistica Para Ingenieros).  They are universally acclaimed as models of clear, intuitive, and logical writing, and interesting and elegant examples.  Thousands of students who thought they didn’t like or were indifferent to probability learned to understand and appreciate it through Ross’s books.
 
Prof. Ross’ writing influences leading scholars in the field at least as strongly as he influences students.  His publication record is unique in that he disseminates a large share of his work in his books, which have been variously described by our colleages and associates as “the gold standard,” “classics,” “widely utilized,”" and “huge contributions.”
 
Books by Sheldon Ross:

• A First Course in Probability, seventh edition, Prentice-Hall, 2005.
• Introduction to Probability Models, ninth edition Academic Press, 2006.
• Stochastic Processes, second edition, Wiley, 1995.
• Probability Models for Computer Science, Academic Press, 2001.
• Introduction to Probability and Statistics for Engineers and Scientists, third edition, Academic Press, 2004.
• Introductory Statistics, second edition, Academic Press, 2005.
• Applied Probability Models with Optimization Applications, Holden-Day, 1970.
• Reprint edition, Dover Publications, 1992.
• Introduction to Stochastic Dynamic Programming, Academic Press, 1983.
• An Elementary Introduction to Mathematical Finance: Options and other Topics, second edition,
• Cambridge University Press, 2002.
• Simulation, fourth edition, Academic Press, 2006.
• Topics in Finite and Discrete Mathematics, Cambridge University Press, 2000.
• Statistical Aspects of Quality Control, with Cyrus Derman, Academic Press, 1997.