IISE Operations Research Division Undergraduate Student Case Competition

The Operations Research (OR) Division of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) announces an Undergraduate Student Case Competition. This Hackathon-style case competition is to empower students to bridge the gap between classroom learning and real-world practice. By applying operations research methods to pressing societal and organizational challenges, participants will develop innovative solutions that demonstrate the power of analytics to improve operational decisions and create value.

Problem Context

Employing staffing and scheduling are critical aspects of resource management in labor-intensive, customer-centric service organizations, such as millions of nursing homes around the world. Non-stationary case-mix nursing home resident need time-series data will be given, student teams are challenged with multi-period, multi-objective staffing and scheduling challenges while incorporating concerns on resident centeredness.

Eligibility of Participants

  • A team of 1 – 4 undergraduate students; one faculty advisor and/or one graduate student mentor are allowed.
  • Student members must be undergraduate from higher education institutes in industrial & systems engineering or related fields .
  • Student members should be enrolled at the time the hackathon takes place.
  • At least one of the students on the team must be a member of IISE/OR.

Competition Process

Letter of Intent: a team must submit a letter of interest to participate in the competition via email to the chairs of the competition committee by Friday, February 13, 2026. The letter of interest needs to include:

  1. The list of names of team members (including advisor(s)), their affiliations, and contact information (email and phone).
  2. One team member is identified as the main contact.

The competition committee will notify each team that submit a letter of intent whether they are eligible and invited and discuss with the team logistic issues of the hackathon.

  • Hackathon: it will take place from February 27th (Friday) 12:01 am to March 2nd (Monday) 11:59 pm (nearly 4 full days).
  • Teams must submit a technical report (no more than 10 pages) describing their solution to chairs of the competition committee at the end of the hackathon. Based on the technical report, four finalist teams will be selected one week after the hackathon.
  • Oral presentation: The finalist teams will attend the IISE Annual Conference & Expo 2026 to present their case study solution. Both technical and non-technical components in the presentation will be evaluated. First, second, third, and fourth-place teams will be announced at the town hall meeting.

Evaluation Process

Each team will be evaluated by the following criteria:

  • Methodological originality
  • Explanation of the model(s)
  • Demonstration of the prototype scheduling tool
  • Real-world Impact

Recognition

  • Recognition at the OR Town Hall Meeting at Annual Conference
  • Recognition in ISE magazine and OR webpage
  • Cash Prize

Important Dates

  • February 13, 2026: Deadline for LOI submission.
  • February 27 – March 2, 2026: Hackathon.
  • March 13, 2026: Notification of the finalists.
  • May 16- May 19, 2026: Oral presentations of finalist teams at the IISE Annual Conference & Expo 2026 located in Loews Arlington Hotel, Arlington, TX.

Competition Committee Chairs

Nan Kong, Purdue University
Bo Zeng University of Pittsburgh

2026 Winners

1st Place:
Daniel Burke Hopkins, Liam Thomas Mahony, Elliot Martin Overhiser
California Polytechnic State University

2nd Place Winners:
Will Vass, Parker Coates, Matthew De Armas, Raneem Aldhirgham
Texas A&M University

Lan Lou, Jianqi Wang, Junjie Gan
Tsinghua University

3rd Place:
Huilan Wei, Hongwei Wang, Hongyi Li
Tsinghua University

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