Ph.D. in Operations Research

Cornell provides an unparalleled educational and research environment for doctoral study. Our school is highly respected for work that influences and seeds ideas in the academic community to reach new understanding. Our core strength is our faculty; they are distinguished teachers and researchers who build breadth and depth in fundamental science and methodological research. Our reputation is demonstrated through faculty and student awards, journal publications, and textbook authorship.

Our students and graduates are leaders, advancing and influencing decision and management sciences. They’ve received fellowships from the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, Department of Defense, and the National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and have won awards like the SIAM Student Paper Prize, MSOM Student Paper Award, and the INFORMS/IIE Student Chapter Outstanding Teaching Assistant Awards, among others.

“The faculty in the ORIE department are friendly and accessible. Through my Ph.D., I’ve had the opportunity to work with excellent colleagues, and the collaborative research experiences helped me expand my expertise. The uniquely interdisciplinary program helped me understand a wide variety of topics from optimization to statistics and probability.”

Sean Sinclair, Ph.D. ’23 Assistant Professor, Northwestern University, Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences department

Research

Our program emphasizes operations research as a mathematical science. As a doctoral student in operations research, you’ll participate in a rigorous intellectual program that demands independent investigation and achievement and characterized by original scholarly work of the highest caliber. You’ll work closely with faculty in the school, college and across Cornell ↗ to build a strong analytical foundation for advanced research in theory, methodology, and new applications.

Doctoral research is sponsored by industrial partners like IBM, General Motors, Sunoco, Amazon, and others. Our graduates go on to teach at top schools such as MIT, the University of Texas-Austin, the University of Wisconsin School of Business, and Princeton.