Theresa Roeder

Mike Kuhl, President of the Society, called the meeting to order at 6:19pm and thanked council and committee members. Each person at the meeting introduced themselves (name and affiliation).

Ann Dunkin, General Chair of WSC '09, reported on the conference to date. Current paid attendance is 596, with an expected total attendance of around 680. These numbers are a few less than in previous years, but are good considering the economy. The breakeven point is around 543, so the conference should make a profit, though we will not know until the final numbers are in. Cheryl Clark has done an excellent job of providing great catering under budget.

Mike Kuhl reported on the I-Sim Research Workshop in Warwick last summer. It was very successful with 35 attendees. Extended abstracts are available on the I-Sim web site and the papers will be featured in a special issue of Journal of Simulation. The next research workshop will tentatively be held in July 2011 at the University of Montreal. Steve Chick and Shane Henderson volunteered to help.

Peter Haas gave the Vice President's report. There was strong I-Sim participation at this year's fall INFORMS conference: 16 I-Sim (co-)sponsored sessions, with 60 presentations. Thanks to all session organizers. There are several upcoming events:

• INFORMS Conference on OR Practice in Orlando, FL, April 18-20, 2010.
• 2010 MAS/INFORMS Southern Regional Conference April 2010 in Huntsville, AL. We are looking for a cluster chair.
• ALIO/INFORMS Joint International Meeting, Buenos Aires, Argentina, June 14-17, 2010. There are 5 sponsored sessions organized so far, and we are looking for papers.
• Operational Research Society 5th Simulation Workshop in Worcestershire, England, March 23-24, 2010. Early registration starts February 12, 2010. www.theorsociety.com Sun is guaranteed.
• The INFORMS 2010 Fall meeting will be in Austin, TX, Nov 7-10, 2010. Please contact Peter Haas if you are interested in organizing an I-Sim sponsored session.

Theresa Roeder gave the Secretary's report. 90 members have been in the society for 20 or more years. Members are reminded to please renew their subscriptions!

Bahar Biller gave the Treasurer's report. I-Sim is in very good financial shape. Its balance increased almost $30,000 from January to June, 2009, mostly due to revenues from WSC. Mike Kuhl explained that there are $20,750 in retained funds because of the WSC sponsorship agreement. I-Sim is exposed at $88,320 for (future) WSCs, through 2013 (WSC total exposure $353,281). Christos Alexopoulos reported that the executive by-laws will hopefully approved by end of this conference.

Steve Chick reported for the nominations committee (other committee members are Dave Goldsman, Jim Wilson, and David Kelton). The committee has been working on putting together a full slate of candidates for 2010-2012. A preliminary ballot has been assembled with at least 2 candidates per position. 10+ members are needed to add other nominations. The ballots will appear in the spring newsletter and are due May 31.

• VP/President Elect: Bahar Biller (CMU), Chun-Hung Chen (GMU)
• Treasurer: John Fowler (ASU), Hong Wan (Purdue)
• Secretary: Seong-Hee Kim (GA Tech), Raghu Pasupathy (VA Tech)
• Council: Christine Currie (Southampton), Ray Hill (AFIT), Paul Rogers (University of Calgary), Oliver Rose (TU Dresden), Paul Sanchez (NPS).

Bahar Biller gave the report for the Committee on Underrepresented Minorities and Women (CUMW). Other committee members are Emily Lada and Hong Wan. Awardees are Dr. Gabriella Dellino (University of Siena), Canan Gunes (CMU), and Nugroho Pujowidianto (University of Singapore).

Durk-Jouke van der Zee reported for the WSC PhD Colloquium. Other committee members are Soumyadip Ghosh and Margaret Loper. There were just under 50 participants this year. The Colloquium was again jointly sponsored by I-Sim and ACM/SIGSIM. Alexander Verbraeck of Delft University, UMD was the keynote speaker ("Beyond PhD - What Next?"). Colloquium participants receive reimbursement for the conference registration fee, and a one-year society membership to both societies.
The format of this year's Colloquium mirrored the main conference with 4 themed sessions, a speakers lunch, and a keynote. Next year's keynote is Leon McGinnis from Georgia Tech. Next year, Ali Tafazzoli (Metron Aviation, Inc.) will join committee, and Margaret Loper will chair.
There were 9 contenders for the best student paper, which carries a $200 award and a certificate. Ming Liu (Northwestern) won the best MS/OR-focused paper with "Estimating Expected Shortfall with Stochastic Kriging." Claudia Szabo (National University of Singapore) won the CS-focused paper.

Editors' reports:

• Marvin Nakayama for the Journal on Computing. Thanks to associate editors. There were 20 submissions, 3 accepts, 12 rejects. The average time to first response was 44.1 days, the average time for all submissions was 46.3 days. Authors are encouraged to submit good-quality simulation papers to the JoC.
• Steve Chick for Assaf Zeevi for Management Science. There are more submissions to stochastic modeling and simulation. The acceptance rate is approximately the same as for Management Science in general, around 10-15%. The theme for Management Science in the last few years has been different from the "managerial insight" that was required before. Now, the journal is looking for novel articles that will lead to many citations. Send your absolute best articles to Mgmt Science.
• Shane Henderson for Operations Research. Statistics are in the newsletter. Currently, there is a push to create proceedings for fall INFORMS. (Not all participants would have to publish in them.) Editorial statements for INFORMS journals would be required if this were to occur. There have been a large number of submissions, which is good news and indicative of a healthy community. There is preliminary discussion at OR about the relationship between conference papers and (follow-up) OR papers. A more substantive distinction between the papers may be required in the future.
• Sheldon Jacobson for Chun-Hung Chen for IIE Transactions. New submissions in health care, and homeland security. Submissions are significantly higher, and the journal is looking for more methodological simulation papers. Please send your best papers here.
• Jim Wilson for TOMACS. 28% acceptance rate for 2009. The average turnaround time is 65 days for first and also final decisions. As of October 2009, there will be 6 papers per issue. They are halfway through filling Vol. 21 No. 1, and there is currently a backlog of 13 months. As of 1/31/10, Jim Wilson will no longer be Editor in Chief of TOMACS.

Old business:
At INFORMS, there was a proposal to increase CUMW awards to $500 with the number of awards to be determined by I-Sim Council. Currently, the award is $100. Pres White moved to adopt the new policy, Jim Wilson seconded, and the motion passed.

New business:
Jim Wilson reported that he, Christos Alexopoulos, and Dave Goldsman have edited a Festschrift in honor of George Fishman: "Advancing the Frontiers of Simulation" is now published (Spring 2009). It was presented to George Fishman in the spring. Jim Wilson made a motion that "I-Sim buy 100 copies available for $50 (which is much lower than the regular price of $150) to give to PhD Colloquium participants or members who would like to purchase a copy." Dick Nance seconded the motion, and it passed. The Festschrift contains 13 articles. The lead article is on his career, the second article a transcript of a six-hour interview with him in fall 2007 by the editors. The other articles are invited papers on a variety of topics.

Bob Sargent reported on the Simulation Archive, www.tinyurl.com/simulation-archive. The advisory committee consists of Bob Sargent (chair), Dick Nance, and Jim Wilson. Endowment is at $16,174, with the current goal to increase it to $25,000. Other goals include collecting more materials and oral histories. The Archive is fully funded, and is therefore open to anyone, not just NCSU-affiliates. The materials are being cataloging and archived. They are not in the online archive, nor are they digitized. There has been tremendous support from the library because of the support from the Society. (It is the first collection that is supported by societies.) Bob Sargent made a motion that: "I-Sim give $5,000 to the simulation archive endowment." Jim Wilson seconded the motion. Steve Chick asked to what extent the advisory committee has approached individuals for donations. Bob Sargent responds that they have not gone out in a formal way to solicit out of concern for the economy; they wanted to wait until things have improved. Donations to the archive are tax-deductible. Shane Henderson proposes an amendment to the motion, to increase the endowment to $25,000. Jim Wilson seconded the amendment. Barry Nelson asked whether the $88,000 in liabilities discussed earlier in the meeting should be considered. Doug Morrice asked whether there has been a discussion about risk management. The answer is that there has been, but no conclusion has been reached about how much to hold. Barry Nelson stated he would prefer donating $5,000, and would like a statement from current society officers about the society's exposure. Steve Chick and Pres White agreed. There has already been discussion on asking ACM/SIGSIM to contribute. The amendment was defeated and the original motion passed. Thanks to Bob Sargent and the committee for all their hard work.

There was no other new business.

Awards:

• Christos Alexopoulos presented the Outstanding Publication Award (other committee members were Peter Glynn and Seong-Hee Kim). There were 6 or 7 outstanding publications including books and journal papers from 2006-2008. The award goes to Athanassios Avramidis and Pierre L'Ecuyer for their paper "Efficient Monte Carlo and Quasi-Monte Carlo Option Pricing under the Variance-Gamma Model," which appeared in Management Science in 2006.
• Marvin Nakayama presented the Distinguished Service Award (other committee members were Russell Cheng and Russell Barton). Pres White was selected as this year's recipient for his outstanding work over many years.
• Dick Nance presented the Lifetime Professional Achievement Award (other committee members are Keebom Kang and Enver Yucesan). This year's recipient is Averill Law.

Steve Chick thanks Jim Wilson for all his contributions to TOMACS.

Bob Sargent moved to adjourn, Christos Alexopoulos seconded the motion. The meeting adjourned at 8:09pm.

Attendees: Attendees: In the interest of preventing email address harvesting, email addresses have been disguised. To get the true email address, replace AT with @. Theresa Roeder tmroederATsfsu.edu
Michael Kuhl mekeieATrit.edu
Peter Haas peterhATalmaden.ibm.com
Bahar Biller billerbATandrew.cmu.edu
Nugroho Pujowidianto nugrohoATnusedu.so
Ming Liu mingliu2010ATnorthwestern.edu
Canan Gunes cgunesATandrew.cmu.edu
Ilya Ryzhov Psimeton iryzhov John Shortle jshortleATgmu.edu
Young-Jun Son sonATsie.arizona.edu
Douglas Morrice MorriceATmail.utexas.edu
Antuela Tako antuela.takoATwbs.ac.uk
Staorianna Dimitriou staorianna.dimitriou06ATwbs.ac.uk
Stewart Robinson stewart.robinsonATwbs.ac.uk
Durk-Jouk van der Zee d.j.van.der.zeeATrug.nl
Natalie Steiger nsteigerATmain.edu
Richard Nance nanceATvt.edu
Laura Mauer lauraATgeerms.com
John Mauer jmauerATgeerms.com
Sheldon Jacobson shjATIllinois.edu
Ray Hill raymond.hillATafit.edu
J.O. Miller john.millerATafit.edu
Maria Villarreal villarreal-marroquin.1ATosu.edu
Sina Meraji sina.mrjATgmail.com
Tom Schriber schriberATumich.edu
Barry L. Nelson nelsonbATnorthwestern.edu
Jamie R. Wieland jamie.wielandATilstu.edu
Masashi Kaida mkaidaATaol.com
Susan Hunter srhunterATvt.edu
Raghu Pasupathy pasupAThatvt.edu
Xiaowei Ziyang xiaoweizATstanford.edu
Henry Lam khlamATfas.harvard.edu
Michael Fu mfuATrhsmith.umd.edu
Audrey Malykhanov malyhanovATyandex.ru
Vitaly Chernenko chernenkoveATgmail.com
Lee Schruben leesATberkeley.edu
Dashi Singham dsinghamATberkeley.edu
Sergio Hernandez sahATadm.uniandes.edu.co
Martha Centeno centenoATfiu.edu
Peter Frazier pf98ATcornell.edu
Eunji Lim limATmiami.edu
Rishabu Kotunri rkothariATstanford.edu
Ali Tafazzoli tafazzoliATmetronaviation.com
Jose Blanchet jose.blanchetATgmail.com
Peter Glynn glynnATstanford.edu
Jeff Hong honglATust.hk
Bruce Schmeiser bruceATpurdue.edu
Michael J. North northATanl.gov
Ming-hua Hsieh mhsiehATnccu.edu
.tw Demet Batur dbatur2ATunl.edu
Nabil Channouf nabil.channoufATgerad.ca Pierre L'Ecuyer lecuyerATiro.umontreal.ca Bruno Tuffin btuffinATiria.fr Gabriella Dellino dellinoATdii.unisi.it Marvin Nakayama marvinATnjit.edu
Wai Kin (Victor) Chan chanwATrpi.edu
Dave Morton mortonATmail.utexas.edu
Zhi Zhou zhouzATrpi.edu
Sujin Kim iseksATnus.edu.sg
Amr El-Bakry afmas1973ATgmail.com
Averill Law averillATsimulation.ws
Steffi Law averillATsimulation.ws
Enver Yucesan enver.yucesanATinsead.edu
Arnie Buss abussATnps.edu
Russell Barton rbartonATpsu.edu
Paul Sanchez pjsancheATnps.edu
Susan Sanchez ssanchezATnps.edu
Charles Macal macalATanl.gov
Jim Wilson jwilsonATncsu.edu
Pres White kpwhiteATvirginia.edu
Thanos Avramidis aa1w07ATsoton.ac.uk
Steve Chick stephen.chickATinsead.edu
Enlu Zhou enluzhouATillinois.edu
Dave Goldsman smanATgatech.edu
Leonardo Bedoya l.bedoyavalenciaATcolostate-pueblo.edu
Oliver Rose oliver.roseATtu-dresden.de
Shane Henderson sgh9ATcornell.edu