Benefits Science Technologies Founder Dimitris Bertsimas Awarded the INFORMS President's Award and Prestigious John von Neumann Theory Prize.

BOSTON, Nov. 16, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Dr. Dimitris Bertsimas, Boeing Professor and co-director of the Operations Research Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and co-founder and Chief Scientist at Benefits Science Technologies (BST), has been recognized by INFORMS, the world's largest professional association dedicated to advancements in operations research, and analytics to improve operational processes, decision-making, and outcomes.

Dr. Bertsimas received two honors from INFORMS, the President's Award and the John von Neumann Theory Prize, for his work in the development of optimal classification (OCT) and regression (ORT) trees for prediction and prescription with and without hyperplanes. These advancements in the science are driving the next generation of machine learning methods to provide state of the art performance in predicting future risk.

Applied to the healthcare decision space through the BST platform, this enables consultants and employers to model "what if" scenarios for plan configuration, including stop-loss and supplemental plan design, and deliver timely, customized business intelligence, tailored to the specific healthcare needs of the group, empowering decision-makers to maximize every healthcare dollar.

"The two Informs awards are the latest recognition of Dimitris' lifelong pursuit of applying advanced analytics to better the world," said Stephen Sofoul, MBA, CEO & President. "His industry-leading work in the areas of predictive and robust analytics is the driving force behind BST's unique capabilities in health plan optimization, disease prediction, risk scoring, underwriting, re-tiering, and reporting. We are proud to call him a friend and partner. Congratulations Dimitris!"

About Benefits Science Technologies
Founded in 2012, BST is recognized as a world-leading research and applied science team, applying advanced analytics and Robust Optimization to complex health insurance decisions, providing data analytics software/analysis to employers and consultants to help manage the risk of self-funded health plans.

BST's team of 7 Ph.Ds. combine world-class technical knowledge and practical financial experience to improve the connection to data, empower optimal decisions to control costs, and improve quality of care for plan members. One of the powerful and unique features of the platform lies in its ability to provide prescriptive recommendations. BST's Health Plan Optimizer designs optimal health plan configurations while obeying overall premium, business quality, and other plan owner-specified criteria. BST is headquartered in Boston, MA, with offices in Atlanta, GA, and Houston, TX.

About the INFORMS President's Award
The purpose of this award is to recognize and thereby encourage, important contributions to the welfare of society by members of our profession at the local, national, or global level. Achievements suitable for this recognition may be in technical or scientific education or in paid or voluntary consulting or management (commercial, academic, governmental, or nonprofit). The accomplishments honored need not have been documented by personal execution of formal or informal OR/MS studies, but could have been reflected in support or promotion of OR/MS efforts. The award is given each year at the National meeting if there is a suitable recipient. The award is a framed certificate with a brief citation.

About the John von Neumann Theory Prize
The John von Neumann Theory Prize is awarded annually to a scholar (or scholars in the case of joint work) who has made fundamental, sustained contributions to theory in operations research and the management sciences. The award is given each year at the INFORMS Annual Meeting if there is a suitable recipient. Although the Prize is normally given to a single individual, in the case of accumulated joint work, the recipients can be multiple individuals.

The Prize is awarded for a body of work, typically published over a period of several years. Although recent work should not be excluded, the Prize typically reflects contributions that have stood the test of time. The criteria for the Prize are broad and include significance, innovation, depth, and scientific excellence.

SOURCE Benefits Science Technologies