Eugene P. Visco Prize

About the Eugene P. Visco Prize Competition

Established in 2019, the Visco Prize recognizes early-career analysts for their excellence in research quality, contributions, and presentation. Named for Mr. Eugene P. Visco, FS, the prize seeks junior or early-career analysts conducting impactful, technically rigorous, and original research that advances the field of national security operations research.

The Visco Prize Competition is held annually at the MORS Emerging Techniques Forum (ETF). Presenters submitting abstracts to ETF must indicate that they are submitting to be considered for the Visco Prize. MORS staff will verify the presenters' eligibility. Following judging, the winner is then announced during ETF.

Purpose

• To honor Mr. Eugene P. Visco, FS, an ardent supporter of MORS junior analysts and a champion for quality presentations. He served on the MORS Board of Directors from 1969-1973 and held the positions of Secretary Treasurer and Second Vice President during his tenure. He also served as the Army Sponsor’s Representative from 1987-1996.
• To recognize excellence among junior and early-career analysts in the profession.

Criteria

• Presenters should be forty years old or younger as of 1 June and have been doing operations research for less than 10 years.
• The conducted research must:
• Be an original and self-contained contribution to systems analysis or operations research.
• Demonstrate an application of analysis or methodology, either actual or conceptualized.
• Advance the frontier of a tool, technique, or methodology, or show a novel implementation of systems analysis or operations research.

Judging Criteria

• Professional quality
• Problem definition
• Explanation of current methodology
• Description of new approach / methodology
• Data sources and analysis
• Data visualization techniques
• Logical description and interpretation of analysis

Past Prize Winners

2024 - Ms. Sophia Rose Calof Lander
Presentation on "Deception as a Successful Deterrent of Aggression: A Game Theoretical Approach to Wargaming"

2023 - LtCol Donald Williams, USAF, PhD
Presentation on "Methodologies for Assessing Space Threats in All-Domain Common Operational Pictures"

2022 - Dr. Paul Fanto, IDA
Presentation on “Resilient Position Data Fusion with a Generic Kalman Filter Method"

2021 - Dr. Iain Cruickshank
Presentation on “Multi-View Clustering of Social-Based Data”

2020 - MAJ Jaison D. Desai, PhD
Presentation on “Determination of Influential Factors on Roadway Bridge Sufficiency Using Inspection Data and LASSO: A Proof-of-Concept”

2019 - Dr. David Masad
Presentation on "Predicting Crisis Behavior with Reinforcement Learning"