Sara Reed, a graduate teaching assistant in the Department of Business Analytics at the University of Iowa, won first place and an honorable mention award in the Bayer Women in Operations Research Scholarship competition.

The $500 scholarship covers registration expenses to attend the INFORMS annual conference. It is open to female graduate students pursuing either a master's degree or Ph.D. in operations research, analytics, or a related field and be close to graduation. Applicants must be a member of the Analytics Society of INFORMS. In all, 26 students applied for the scholarship.

Reed, a doctoral student in the Applied Mathematics and Computational Sciences program, is co-advised by Henry B. Tippie Research Professor of Business Analytics Ann Campbell, and Gary C. Fethke Research Professor of Business Analytics Barry Thomas. Currently Campbell is serving as interim departmental executive officer for the Department of Business Analytics. Thomas is serving as interim senior associate dean for the Tippie College of Business.

Reed is focusing her research on developing new operations models and methods to help companies understand whether autonomous-assisted delivery—a delivery person working from an autonomous vehicle to deliver packages to customers—is worth the investment and what impact such a business practice would have on pollution and congestion.