Approaching 2022 with an optimistic (and excited!) eye to the future

Ashley Kilgore:

Welcome to a brand new year of Resoundingly Human podcasts. Whether this is your first episode or you are a long time listener, thank you for joining us and I hope you’ll subscribe for even more great content highlighting the incredible contributions of INFORMS members.

Ashley Kilgore:

To kick off the first episode of the new year, joining me is the 2022 INFORMS President, Radhika Kulkarni, a member of the analytics industry for 35 plus years. Most recently as the VP of Advanced Analytics R&D at SAS.

Ashley Kilgore:

Radhika, welcome to your first interview on the Resoundingly Human podcast. I’m looking forward to working with you over the next year.

Radhika Kulkarni:

Thanks, Ashley. It’s a real pleasure for me to be here talking to you and I’m looking forward to next year as well.

Ashley Kilgore:

Radhika, last year, a strong focus for INFORMS, besides navigating the continued impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Was the new strategic plan as well as efforts to increase the diversity and inclusivity of the INFORMS community, could you share a brief update on the state of INFORMS as we enter the new year?

Radhika Kulkarni:

Sure. First, I’d like to make a few remarks about the new strategic plan that was rolled out earlier this year. The goals align with some of the key focus areas that will be important for INFORMS and its members in the coming years. Championing and evangelizing our profession, promoting the research and practice of our disciplines, advancing DEI goals, providing value to our membership and ensuring the financial wellbeing of our organization.

Radhika Kulkarni:

In addition to these goals, I am pleased that our strategic plan clearly identifies an all encompassing scope. Recall that our mission states, “INFORMS advances and promotes the science and technology of decision making to save lives, save money and solve problems.” While we clearly articulate that the scope of our strategic plan covers and embraces the full breadth of disciplines in the INFORMS community that are relevant to the vision and mission. In other words, we have adopted an approach to include a diverse set of disciplines and I’m positive and hopeful that this will serve us well in the long run.

Radhika Kulkarni:

With regard to the state of INFORMS as we enter the new year, the last couple of years have been difficult for INFORMS as for many other associations and organizations. The pandemic has caused a big strain on our financial status with its negative effect on membership, meetings and other aspects. Thankfully, INFORMS has had healthy financial reserves, which has helped us weather this downturn. We did not react to the short term outlook but rather have been able to invest for the future. We need to continue to serve our members and the wider community and not cut the budget for key aspects of our organization. Though, the latest mutation of the virus is causing all of us some concern, there are indications that the pandemic is receding and some of our metrics seem to be headed in the right direction. Our membership has grown recently and the attendance at the annual meeting exceeded our expectations. I’m hopeful that we may see some revenue gains in the coming year in both these areas. I look forward to seeing more of our members in person in the coming year at the analytics and annual meetings.

Ashley Kilgore:

Radhika, as president elect, you chaired an ad hoc INFORMS AI strategy work group with the goal of continuing to advance INFORMS focus on artificial intelligence. Can you tell us about the work you did with that effort?

Radhika Kulkarni:

Certainly, Ashley. This is a passion of mine. My role in INFORMS AI initiative goes back to early 2019 when the president, at that time, Professor Krishan, asked me to co-chair an AI initiative ad hoc committee along with Professor Pascal Van Hentenryck. One of the key goals of this initiative was to advance and promote OR and analytics within AI and to work closely with the AI community to exploit the synergies of the AI and OR communities to transform highly scalable, actionable, automated data driven decision making. Several key outcomes resulted from that initiative in 2019 and continuing into 2020, including a white paper on AI, a vision document submitted to the CCC, et cetera. I guess this was just the beginning of my serious involvement with INFORMS activities post retirement and was the key reason I put my hat in for a position on the board.

Radhika Kulkarni:

At the beginning of this year, Steve Graves asked me to lead an informal AI strategy work group to continue and expand these earlier efforts. Briefly, INFORMS goal with this initiative include the following, advance and promote OR and analytics within the AI community, increase collaboration between the OR and related fields prominent in AI, advocate for OR and analytics among policy makers and other constituencies and position INFORMS members as a resource on AI initiatives.

Radhika Kulkarni:

We have engaged in several activities in support of these goals. A key activity was an AI OR workshop that we jointly organized with INFORMS, ACM, [inaudible 00:07:16] and the CCC, the Computing Communities Consortium. This workshop took place virtually in September. It included imminent speakers from both the OR and AI communities and covered both methods and applications and allowed ample time for question and answer as well as we had several breakout group discussions among the participants. There were over 60 participants with equal representation from both AI and OR with a mix of academia, industry and government. A report out from this first workshop was completed just in time to be shared at the INFORMS annual meeting in Anaheim. And both communities shared it with their members via social media posts, et cetera. We plan two additional workshops in 2022 and we hope to continue to work on some other initiatives related to this.

Ashley Kilgore:

So, in addition to AI, advocacy is another important initiative at INFORMS that continues to create awareness among leadership and policy makers on Capitol Hill. Could you share how this effort will continue to grow in the coming year?

Radhika Kulkarni:

Within INFORMS, a large part of the advocacy efforts that Jeff Cohen has described in many of his columns, stem from the need to the important message that OR and analytics and the related disciplines play a very important role in countless areas, requiring innovative data driven decision making methodologies and frameworks.

Radhika Kulkarni:

In the past year, I have worked closely with Jeff and his team and the signal group on many activities to promote the excellent work of INFORMS members to various constituencies. These include letters to the directors of OSTP and NSF, the director of the National AI Initiative and a meeting with Congressman, Jerry McNerney. We also engaged with the SPS and PS OR communities to gather examples of using OR and AI for societal importance and plan to use them for various media outreach efforts. We have also seen several examples where our members have been featured in media articles and interviews related to many of the different disciplines and fields that our members work on. All these efforts with the leadership and policy makers on Capitol Hill highlight the fact that our members can make valuable contributions and critical policy decisions at the state and national levels. I expect this type of outreach to continue to grow in the next few years as well.

Ashley Kilgore:

And now, there’s also a strong relationship between these two initiatives, AI and advocacy. What are some objectives in these areas, particularly in regard to the government’s national AI initiative?

Radhika Kulkarni:

I’m very excited about the advocacy initiative in general because it maps very well to at least three of the strategic goals of INFORMS. You can see how it can enhance membership value and experience, advance the science and technology of decision making and elevate its impact and champion our professional and our brand.

Radhika Kulkarni:

So, our three goals are very well covered by this advocacy initiative. The AI initiative now fits very well within the overall advocacy effort. It is a very timely effort because it coincides with the governments national AI initiative. Through the various activities that I described earlier for the AI initiative, our goal is to ensure that our members are regarded as being critical to the policy decisions that are being evaluated at the state and government levels. In addition, we hope that our efforts will help our members win their share of the overall funding opportunities and employment opportunities at many different levels, including being included in some of the multimillion dollar AI institutes that are being approved under this umbrella. So, I think that our advocacy initiative exemplified by this specific AI initiative is actually very, very useful in helping us gain recognition in the larger field.

Ashley Kilgore:

And now, what will be some additional objectives and goals for INFORMS throughout the coming year?

Radhika Kulkarni:

As I mentioned earlier, we rolled out the strategic plan in 2021 and there have been many articles related to it in OR/MS Today, describing them in greater detail. Through various communications with the many committees, we are seeking input from the membership on ways in which INFORMS can provide value to its members and make progress on implementing the strategic plan. There are a few areas where we would love to hear from you. How can we add value to INFORMS members in the many demographics? Are there any products or services that we can offer to industry and practice members in particular? I’m also pleased that we are seeing increased membership this year after a decline in 2020. What can we do to encourage more OR and analytics professionals to become INFORMS members and contribute to our profession? What can we do to attract students in the many data science and analytics programs? Many of them end up going into industry. What can we do to ensure that they stay involved with INFORMS and help us grow?

Radhika Kulkarni:

One of the important goals for INFORMS is to advance DEI in everything we do. This is not the responsibility of any special group within INFORMS. It must be an important goal in every activity and initiative that we are involved in. This is an institutional responsibility that involves all members. We cannot simply delegate this to the DEI community or the minority issues forum. Every one of us on the board, on the many committees and in our membership, needs to ensure that our actions are in support of it. I am very happy that the INFORMS DEI initiative has led to several efforts which promote our DEI goal. I would like to continue the many important efforts under this initiative, such as the DEI Ambassador Program, ensuring diversity in the selection of committees and editorial boards, et cetera. I also believe that it is important to create a pipeline of underrepresented groups starting from the K through 12 education programs through undergraduate programs to graduate level education. There are many such areas where I would like to ensure that we continue to make progress through the coming year.

Ashley Kilgore:

Radhika, earlier this year, you wrote a wonderful article sharing your personal professional journey, and I’ll include the link to this in the show notes, that included challenges that I think many of our members might face as they launch their careers. Do you mind walking us through that experience?

Radhika Kulkarni:

Of course, Ashley, I’d be glad to.

Radhika Kulkarni:

When I finished my PhD in Operations Research from Cornell University, I was keen to join academia. I enjoyed research and love to teach as well. Unfortunately, my husband who had graduated from the same department a year earlier, secured a tenure track position at UNC Chapel Hill in 1981, which placed two constraints on what I could do. First of all, the geographical constraints. And second, the availability of tenure track positions in the same discipline. The department at UNC offered me a visiting position for two years, giving me some time to look for alternate positions. At the end of the second year, unable to find a university position, I looked for an industry job in the research triangle area and ended up with an operations research analyst position at SAS Institute within the R&D division.

Radhika Kulkarni:

This seemed like an optimal decision at that point, given the constraints I had. At least that’s what I thought. Well, fast forward to my retirement from SAS Institute, where I retired as VP of Advanced Analytics R&D at the end of 2018, I can say that it actually turned out to be an optimal decision for me, regardless of the initial constraints. So, reflecting on my 35 year career at SAS Institute, I can attest that it was a wonderful ride where I was able to experience the best of both worlds, research and practice. And what do I mean by that? Let me share what I experienced throughout my career in industry through multiple touchpoints with academia. As an R&D executive at a software company, I recognize that fostering close collaborations with universities and supporting the partnership was very crucial for many reasons. The practice community has a myriad of unsolved problems that inspire innovative, theoretical as well as applied research for academia.

Radhika Kulkarni:

In the academic communities, cutting edge research is very valuable for the development of innovative new products in industry. And of course, universities train the labor force for both communities. The partnership can strengthen the curriculum and training to serve both the producers and consumers of analytics, including the researchers core algorithms, which are critical both for university faculty and R&D groups within industry, for the consumers of analytics and OR tools who may need a broad range of analytical skills in many areas as well as senior managers and users of advanced tools and models requiring basic analytics literacy. Over the years, I developed many connections in industry as well as academia, which helps me understand the different perspectives and provide valuable bridges between the two communities. And of course, it helps that I’m married to a professor. So, I have to build those bridges, right?

Ashley Kilgore:

Absolutely.

Ashley Kilgore:

So, Radhika, last year when I spoke with our 2021 president, Stephen Graves, for our first interview, we did a fun exercise to help our members get to know the new president a little better and I’d love to do that with you as well. So, for the next few questions, we’re going to do a lightning round of quick questions and even faster answers. Ready? Here we go.

Ashley Kilgore:

Favorite food or dish.

Radhika Kulkarni:

Masala dosa. That’s a Indian crepe. It’s an Indian dish.

Ashley Kilgore:

Favorite book or TV show.

Radhika Kulkarni:

My favorite book is Pride and Prejudice. And TV show is NCIS.

Ashley Kilgore:

Name three words that someone might use to describe you.

Radhika Kulkarni:

Passionate, goal-oriented, empathetic.

Ashley Kilgore:

Share a fun fact about you that others might not know.

Radhika Kulkarni:

This is something that I’ve not talked about before at all. It’s how I ended up at Cornell. Someone asked me, “How many universities did you apply to before you picked Cornell?” And actually, it was the only university that I applied to when I was leaving India before I came. And the reason is because it was the only university which agreed to waive my application fee, which is an interesting fact. In those days, one had to convert Indian rupees to dollars, which was a pretty difficult problem as it was not easy. You just couldn’t go to the bank and get it. So, I asked many of the universities like MIT, Harvard and Cornell if they would waive my application fee and Cornell was the only one which agreed to do that. So, that’s the only university that I applied to.

Radhika Kulkarni:

Thankfully, I got admitted with the TAship. And so, I ended up there. So, I ended up getting a PhD and also met my future husband there. And I related very interesting factors that later on, I found out that my husband also had applied only to Cornell for the very same reason. So, what are the chances that two people picked Cornell because it waived the fees and then met each other and got married? So, I think that’s a pretty fun fact. And even more interesting thing is both of us served on the Indian Association at Cornell at different times and it was called the Cornell India Association or the CIA. So, I can say that both of us served on the CIA.

Ashley Kilgore:

Oh my goodness. That’s fantastic. If that’s not a sign that you were meant to be, I don’t know what is.

Ashley Kilgore:

So, finally Radhika, what of your accomplishments, big or small, are you the most proud of?

Radhika Kulkarni:

At a personal level, I’m most proud of my three sons who are each pursuing successful careers. Professionally, I’m proudest of having been the leader of the world’s largest analytics product portfolio and ensuring that OR played a key role in the research and development of many innovations throughout this portfolio. But by far, I’m proud of my family.

Ashley Kilgore:

Radhika, I want to thank you again for joining me to introduce yourself to our listeners and give us a look at what’s to come in the year ahead.

Ashley Kilgore:

For final thoughts, can you share what you are most looking forward to as the 2022 INFORMS president?

Radhika Kulkarni:

I’m very optimistic for the coming year. Many of the initiatives that we started in the past couple of years are very timely and I’m excited about continuing them and hope to see positive outcomes from them. Our advocacy efforts and the related AI initiative should serve us well as there is a greater push for AI at the national level. We have a strong board and an excellent staff led by our executive director, who I enjoy working with. I look forward to making progress on our strategic goals, continuing the progress we have made in our advocacy, DEI, AI, membership outreach and other initiatives.

Radhika Kulkarni:

As we enter 2022, I’m committed to working with Elena, Dave, Darda, the board members and the INFORMS staff to ensure that we can turn the corner on finances as we come out of the pandemic. I look forward to the analytics conference and the annual meeting and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we will all be able to meet in person.

Radhika Kulkarni:

Finally, I would like to add that I’m honored that you have all placed the trust in me and elected me to this position and look forward to 2022. I welcome any suggestions you may have that could help me serve you and our professional organization. Thank you.

Ashley Kilgore:

Want to learn more? Be sure to check out the show notes posted in conjunction with OR/MS Today magazine online to learn more about what was discussed in this episode.

Ashley Kilgore:

The podcast is also available for download from Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher and Spotify. Wherever you listen, please take the time to do a review as that helps other listeners find the podcast.

Ashley Kilgore:

Until next time, I’m Ashley Kilgore and this is Resoundingly Human.