Here’s how big a deal Shubho was

Shubho’s passing has not only left a hole in our hearts, but it’s also a giant loss to the field of operations research. And there’s no greater testament to his impact than what his colleagues and former students have said they plan to do to keep his memory alive:

Endow a permanent graduate fellowship that will bear his name.

We’ll share more details as we learn more, including how you can make a donation in his name, should you want to. But this is a huge honor — one that will benefit, for years to come, researchers in the field that he loved so much.

His family and friends may not fully appreciate how big a deal Shubho was in the area of optimization because it’s such a rarefied discipline. Plus, he hated the spotlight and was entirely too humble to talk about his accomplishments.

So let me try to sum it up as best as I can.

— His PhD dissertation won the George B. Dantzig Award, for how innovative it was

— He was Dean’s Professor and Faculty Fellow at Georgia Tech, which is the no. 1 institution for Industrial and Systems Engineering

— He was appointed the Anderson-Interface Chair, an incredible honor bestowed on someone who’s shown academic leadership in the field of sustainability, energy and climate.

— His research has been supported by federal agencies like the Air Force and the Navy, as well as companies like IBM and Samsung

— He’s served as the chair of the Stochastic Programming Society and the editor of several research journals

— He’s won the National Science Foundation CAREER award, two IBM Faculty Awards, the Coca-Cola Junior Professorship from ISyE, and, most recently, the Farkas Prize, for his outstanding contributions to the field of optimization over the course of his career. (His illness prevented him from attending the ceremony.)

— And he was the vice president of Research & Development at Prosumer Grid, a startup borne out of one of his research projects whose goal is to optimize the energy resources around the world.

Take a look at this long list.

There’s no doubt that he could have soared even higher. But the measure of a life is not how long it’s been lived, but the impact it’s had.

And in that respect, Shubho’s was full — and fulfilling.