ASP, Art and Science of Practice: Educating Military Operations Research Practitioners

The 2013 UPS George D. Smith Prize was awarded to the Naval Postgraduate School’s (NPS) Operations Research (OR) department for “effective and innovative preparation of students to be good practitioners of operations research, management science, or analytics.” In the spirit of the prize, this paper shares details about our degree program. The program is closely linked to its military sponsor, the United States Department of Defense, in a unique relationship that ensures NPS students and faculty are focused on critical and important problems facing the military. Our students bring firsthand knowledge of the challenges our organization faces, and leave our academic program as OR practitioners prepared to immediately meet those challenges.