IAOTP names MIT professor Richard Larson Professor of the Decade

The International Association of Top Professionals will honor MIT professor Richard Larson as Professor of the Decade at its annual awards gala in New York City at the Plaza Hotel. The recognition adds to Larson’s decades-long career in operations research, education technology and public-sector advising.

Why it matters: - IAOTP’s selection puts a spotlight on Richard Larson’s long career in operations research, emergency response systems, education technology and workforce planning. - The honor also gives Larson another high-profile recognition ahead of IAOTP’s annual gala in New York City. - Larson will be inducted into IAOTP’s Hall of Fame at the same event.

What happened: - The International Association of Top Professionals selected Prof. Richard Larson as Professor of the Decade for 2026. - IAOTP will honor Larson at its Annual Awards Gala at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. - The award follows Larson’s prior IAOTP honors last year, when the organization named him Top Professor of the Year and gave him a Lifetime Achievement Award.

The details: - Larson is an MIT professor with five decades of experience in operations research and systems analysis. - His work has covered urban service systems, disaster planning, pandemics, queueing, logistics, technology-enabled education, smart-energy houses and workforce planning. - Larson has authored, co-authored or edited six books and more than 175 scientific articles. - His first book, Urban Police Patrol Analysis, won the Lanchester Prize from the Operations Research Society of America. - Urban Operations Research, co-authored with Amedeo Odoni, has more than 1,000 citations. - Larson’s queueing research includes the Queue Inference Engine and the Hypercube Queueing Model, which has 957 citations. - Two papers co-authored with students won Best-Paper-of-the-Year awards. - One paper on H1N1 vaccine distribution appeared in Value in Health in 2012. - Another paper, “STEM crisis or STEM surplus? Yes and yes,” won the Lawrence M. Klein Award from the U.S. Department of Labor in 2015 and was covered by The New York Times. - Larson served as president of ORSA from 1993 to 1994 and as president of INFORMS in 2005. - He served more than 15 years as co-director of the MIT Operations Research Center. - Larson served on the Institute of Medicine’s Board on Health Sciences Policy from 2008 to 2010 and on its Standing Committee on Emergency Management and Medical Response Integration from 2009 to 2015. - He has consulted for companies and government agencies, including major projects with the U.S. Postal Service and the City of New York. - Larson is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and an INFORMS Founding Fellow. - His honors include the INFORMS President’s Award, the Kimball Medal and the first-ever Lifetime Achievement Daniel Berg Medal in 2017. - Larson directed MIT’s Center for Advanced Educational Services from 1995 to 2003. - He was the founding director of LINC, an MIT-based international project that has held eight international symposia. - Larson is currently principal investigator of the MIT BLOSSOMS Initiative. - He continues research on monitoring and controlling Covid-19 and on proposed structural changes in the U.S. education system. - Larson earned his BS and PhD in Electrical Engineering from MIT in 1969. - The IAOTP announcement includes a link to Larson’s LinkedIn profile: More information.

Between the lines: - IAOTP uses selective membership and awards to build prestige around its honorees. - The organization’s recognition strategy pairs a gala event with titles such as Hall of Fame induction and Professor of the Decade. - Larson’s profile combines academic research, public-sector consulting and education innovation, which likely helped make him a fit for IAOTP’s broad leadership criteria.

What's next: - IAOTP will celebrate Larson at its annual awards gala later this year in New York City. - Larson said he hopes to inspire people entering the field, while continuing research and education work through MIT initiatives. - IAOTP says the gala will also recognize other top professionals invited through its vetting process.