Sheldon
Howard Jacobson, Ph.D.
University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Career Summary
Sheldon H. Jacobson is a
Founder Professor of Computer Science, Director of the Simulation and
Optimization Laboratory, and Founding Director of the Bed Time Research
Institute and the Institute for Computational Redistricting at the University
of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He holds
appointments in Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering, Electrical and
Computer Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics, and the Carle Illinois College
of Medicine. He has a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in
Mathematics from McGill University and a Ph.D. in Operations Research from
Cornell University. He has served on the
faculties at Case Western Reserve University (Weatherhead School of Management,
1988-1993), Virginia Tech (Industrial & Systems Engineering, 1993-1999),
and the University of Illinois (1999-present).
He has published 216
peer-reviewed articles, 12 book chapters, 50 conference proceedings, over 660
professional and editorial publications, and delivered over 540 presentations,
seminars and posters (including 20 invited plenaries and keynotes) at conferences,
universities, and research laboratories around the world. He has directed 31 Ph.D. dissertations and
been awarded over $5M of research support from the National Science Foundation and the Air
Force Office of Scientific Research.
As Director of the Bed Time
Research Institute, he spearheaded the creation of two research
videos (“A Healthy Collaboration: Pediatric Immunization and
Operations Research”, “Aviation
Security: Researching the Risk.”) and launched websites, all
designed to communicate the value of basic research through Broader Impact
activities, and promulgate STEM activities for enhancing and growing a
technically literate citizenry. (http://bracketodds.cs.illinois.edu,
http://drivingobesity.cs.illinois.edu,
http://redistricting.cs.illinois.edu).
He has made several seminal
research contributions, all focusing on applying operations research and
optimization-based artificial intelligence to address societal problems of
national interest.
He launched the research
field, aviation security analytics, demonstrating how probabilistic models,
optimization, and artificial intelligence can be used to improve the
performance of aviation security systems.
His research on multi-level aviation security passenger screening at airports
was the precursor to risk-based security, providing the foundational concepts
that informed the design and implementation of TSA Precheck© (see the presentation he
delivered on 3 October 2003 to the TSA outlining the benefits and foundations
for differential passenger screening; see also his 2006 video). These aviation security contributions have been
recognized with numerous awards, including a 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship,
the 2009 IISE Outstanding
IIE Publication Award, the 2010 Christopher Columbus Homeland
Security Award (Transportation and Border
Security) (Runner up), the 2013 IISE Award for Technical Innovation in
Industrial Engineering, the 2018 INFORMS Impact Prize, the 2023 Military Operations Research
Society Clayton J. Thomas Award, the 2023 INFORMS President’s
Award, and the 2024 INFORMS Military and Security Section J.
Steinhardt Prize.
His research on the design of pediatric vaccine formularies introduced
the use of operations research in the pediatric immunization domain. This research was recognized with the 2010
IISE Award for Technical Innovation in Industrial Engineering. His research on bridging obesity,
transportation, and fuel consumption established the impact of transportation
on obesity, providing the foundation for non-medical obesity interventions
based on modes of transportation. His
research on computational
redistricting demonstrates how optimization-based AI can be used to combat
gerrymandering by creating a transparent environment for designing and
evaluating district maps.
His research has been widely
reported and communicated in the national press, including the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, USA Today, and the
Los Angeles Times, editorialized in the New
York Times, and discussed in Business
Week, Forbes, and Kiplinger. He has appeared on The Street Signs (CNBC), The
Closing Bell (CNBC), Weekends with
Alex Witt (MSNBC), CNN Business, Washington
Post Radio, CBS This Morning, ABC
Good Morning America, Marketplace
Tech (NPR), CBC Canada News
(television and radio), and BBC World News (television and
radio). His views have been published as
opinion essays and letters in the Washington
Post, New York Daily News, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, Indianapolis Star,
Quartz, CNN Opinion, Inside Higher Ed, Wall
Street Journal, The Hill, and many others.
In addition to the list
above, he has been recognized with several other professional awards, including
the INFORMS George E. Kimball Medal
(2020), the INFORMS Saul Gass Expository Writing Award (2020), the INFORMS President’s Award (2023), the INFORMS
Advocacy Governance Committee Public
Engagement Award (2026), the IISE
David F. Baker Distinguished Research
Award (2017), the Aviation Security
Research Award (Aviation Security International) (2002), and the Award for Excellence in the Teaching of
Operations Research (IISE Operations Research Division) (2011). He is an elected Fellow of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS, 2020), the Institute
for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS, 2013) and the
Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE, 2011). His research has also been recognized with
several best paper and poster awards, including the 2019 INFORMS Best
Service Science paper for his research on computational redistricting.
His leadership and expertise have been used by both government and professional
societies. He briefed personnel within
the Office of Science and Technology
Policy (in the executive Office of President George W. Bush) (August 2002,
Washington, DC) on issues related to aviation security and assessing the cost
and benefit of checked baggage screening strategies. He briefed the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice (ACIP) on a web-site he
co-developed for designing optimal pediatric vaccine formularies (October 2001,
Atlanta, Georgia.) He served on
committees for the National Academies, including the National Research Council Committee
on Airport Passenger Screening: Backscatter X-Ray Machines (2013-2015), the National Academy of
Medicine (NAM) Standing Committee for the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention Division of Strategic National Stockpile (2015-2017), and A Workshop on Medical-Product Shortages:
Effects on Patient Health and Opportunities to Predict, Prevent, and Respond to
Them (2018). He led the NSF-Funded workshop (May
2016, Arlington, VA), Setting a Broader
Impacts Innovation Roadmap, in creating new pathways for enhancing Broader
Impacts in the Engineering Directorate at the NSF. He served as the (elected)
Treasurer for the Institute for Operations
Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS)
(2015-2016) and as a Program Director in the Division of Civil,
Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation at the National Science Foundation
(2012-2014). He was an invited panelist
at the 2019 INFORMS Government and Analytics
Summit.