{"488961":{"#nid":"488961","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Student Spotlight: Matias Siebert Sandoval, Franz Edelman Award Finalist","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EOnce again, Georgia Tech\u2019s ISyE students have shown themselves to be exemplary. In this case, Matias Siebert Sandoval, an ISyE Ph.D. student earning his doctorate in operations research (2019), is part of a team selected as a finalist for the prestigious \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.informs.org\/Recognize-Excellence\/Franz-Edelman-Award\u0022\u003EINFORMS Franz Edelman Award\u003C\/a\u003E. The Edelman Award recognizes and rewards outstanding examples of operations research, management science, and advanced analytics in practice in the world.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAs Siebert describes it, his team\u2019s project uses optimization to schedule the Chilean Soccer Leagues, which has both a youth league and a professional league with three divisions, and the South American World Cup qualifying tournament.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis is an ongoing project of some years in duration, so many people have been part of the team. Siebert\u2019s involvement began after he took a 2010 undergraduate course in modeling and optimization at the University of Chile, where he earned his undergraduate degree in industrial engineering and his master\u2019s degree in operations management. Homework for this particular course involved scheduling a simpler tournament with fewer teams. Because Siebert did well and demonstrated interest in the problem, his professors, Rodrigo Wolf, Guillermo Dur\u00e1n, and Andr\u00e9s Weintraub, invited him to join the project full-on. Siebert describes himself as \u201ca huge soccer fan\u201d and says that the project combined his love of soccer and his appreciation for OR.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESiebert explains how the scheduling process developed: \u201cAt first, we started working on an optimization model for scheduling the first-division tournament. Given the success of the first year\u2019s scheduling processes, we then extended the project to the other divisions of the professional soccer league and to the youth soccer league. And finally, in 2015, we used our knowledge of the soccer scheduling process to propose the procedure for the South American World Cup qualifiers. The process of scheduling each of the Chilean soccer leagues is very similar.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe project, which is primarily led by Professor Andr\u00e9s Weintraub from the University of Chile and Professor Guillermo Dur\u00e1n, from the University of Chile and University of Buenos Aires, has provided many benefits \u2013 not only for the Chilean soccer teams themselves, which have seen increased ticket sales and cost reductions due to better travel schedules, but also for the Professional Chilean Soccer Association (ANFP) and for the TV broadcasters. In addition, Siebert says, the optimized scheduling has brought increased \u201ctransparency to the scheduling process, improvements to the tournament\u2019s attractiveness [by making the match-ups more competitive and interesting], and fairness for the less dominant teams.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhen asked how it feels to be a finalist for the Edelman award, Siebert describes it as \u201ca dream come true.\u201d He elaborates, \u201cIt is the most important award in applied OR, so being a finalist \u2013 at this young age \u2013 is huge for my career. Additionally, because this is the third time that the OR group from my university in Chile has attained the finals for this award, it is very important for the group, but especially for my country. This shows that we have world-class researchers in this field of study.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESiebert is proud to be a student at Georgia Tech as well, having selected it for its preeminence in operations research. His professors in Chile encouraged him to apply for admission based on the high-quality teaching and research being done at ISyE. He says, \u201cBeing here for just one semester has shown me that it was the right decision to choose the OR program in ISyE.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESiebert and his team will travel to Orlando in April to present this project in the Edelman\u2019s finalists gala at the INFORMS Business Analytics and Operations Research Conference. The winning team will be selected at this conference.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EMatias Siebert Sandoval, an ISyE Ph.D. student earning his doctorate in operations research (2019), is part of a team selected as a finalist for the prestigious \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.informs.org\/Recognize-Excellence\/Franz-Edelman-Award\u0022\u003EINFORMS Franz Edelman Award\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"ISyE Ph.D. student Matias Siebert Sandoval and his team have been selected as INFORMS Franz Edelman Award finalists."}],"uid":"28766","created_gmt":"2016-01-21 11:54:14","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:20:27","author":"Shelley Wunder-Smith","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2016-01-21T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2016-01-21T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"488931":{"id":"488931","type":"image","title":"Matias Siebert Sandoval, INFORMS Franz Edelman Award Finalist","body":null,"created":"1453395600","gmt_created":"2016-01-21 17:00:00","changed":"1475895245","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:54:05","alt":"Matias Siebert Sandoval, INFORMS Franz Edelman Award Finalist","file":{"fid":"204388","name":"edelman1.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/edelman1_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/edelman1_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":28022,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/edelman1_0.jpg?itok=JERW1_dx"}},"488941":{"id":"488941","type":"image","title":"Matias Sandoval Playing Soccer (Green Jersey #10)","body":null,"created":"1453395600","gmt_created":"2016-01-21 17:00:00","changed":"1475895245","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:54:05","alt":"Matias Sandoval Playing Soccer (Green Jersey #10)","file":{"fid":"204389","name":"soccer-1.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/soccer-1_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/soccer-1_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":921997,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/soccer-1_0.jpg?itok=rBvjvFgS"}},"488951":{"id":"488951","type":"image","title":"Matias Sandoval Kicking a Goal","body":null,"created":"1453395600","gmt_created":"2016-01-21 17:00:00","changed":"1475895245","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:54:05","alt":"Matias Sandoval Kicking a Goal","file":{"fid":"204390","name":"soccer-2.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/soccer-2_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/soccer-2_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":103866,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/soccer-2_0.jpg?itok=65_XZhAm"}}},"media_ids":["488931","488941","488951"],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"},{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"},{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"}],"keywords":[{"id":"169832","name":"Franz Edelman Award"},{"id":"6204","name":"INFORMS"},{"id":"426","name":"isye"},{"id":"169833","name":"Matias Sandoval"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39431","name":"Data Engineering and Science"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:shelley.wunder-smith@isye.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EShelley Wunder-Smith\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWriter\/Editor\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EStewart School of Industrial \u0026amp; Systems Engineering\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E404.385.4745\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["shelley.wunder-smith@isye.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}