Welcome back to Resoundingly Human, the INFORMS podcast! After a short break this summer, we are back with more great content and interviews featuring INFORMS members whose work is helping make Smarter Decisions for a Better World. In this episode, Margaret Brandeau, professor at Stanford University, and the opening plenary speaker at the 2025 INFORMS Annual Meeting, gives valuable insight into how operations research is helping to inform better public policy to save lives.

Retailers are gearing up for their annual “Christmas in July” sales, but this year, the early holiday cheer comes with a warning: escalating tariff whiplash may lead to higher prices, fewer options, and major delays for shoppers come December. Behind the scenes, businesses are scrambling to forecast demand and lock in orders for the back-to-school and winter holiday seasons — but unpredictability in trade policy is breaking the very tools they rely on to plan. In this episode, I’m joined by Debdatta Sinha Roy, a principal scientist in O.R. and data science at Oracle Retail Science R&D, to explore how this volatility…

As we are well into the first half of the year – and here at INFORMS we have packed a lot into these first few months – now is a terrific time to circle back and check in with the 2025 INFORMS President Dave Hunt. We kicked off a brand-new year of Resoundingly Human podcasts back in January with a special double header featuring Dave where we discussed both his goals and objectives relating to INFORMS as well as heard his perspective on the unique and exciting ways INFORMS members are going to continue to help make smarter decisions for…