Attend the Poster Sessions and the Poster Competition
Poster submission deadline: May 23, 2025
Poster session: Monday & Tuesday October 27-28, 2025
12:45–2:00pm
Researchers, practitioners, and students share their O.R. and analytics projects presented as poster displays. Poster Competition winners will be announced during the in-person conference.
Submission and Competition
INFORMS places special emphasis on high-quality poster submissions. A Poster Session Competition will be held to recognize the best posters. If you would like to enter this competition, you are required to submit a soft copy of your poster (in pdf format) by June 15, 2025 together with a short presentation video (maximum 5 minutes recording). You can indicate your participation during the submission procedure.
Poster video submission. By June 15th 2025, you will need to upload a video presentation of your work that is at most five minutes in length.
At the beginning of your video, please show your entire poster on the screen before any introductions or zooming into specific areas of your poster. Also, make sure to have a QR code so people can link to your actual poster. Good luck!
Three winners will be selected during each of the two days.
$350 (1st place)
$250 (2nd place)
$150 (3rd place)
The winners will also receive a certificate and will be recognized in INFORMS newsletters, OR/MS Today, INFORMS Connect, and on the INFORMS website.
Participation in the poster competition is voluntary. That is, an author may elect to enter the General Poster session and make a poster presentation without entering the competition. For those who wish to compete, the committee and judges will review the posters and let you know before the conference if you are accepted to the competition. If you are not accepted as part of the competition, you will automatically be a part of the General Poster session.
New This Year
Submit your poster by May 23, 2025, by June 5th, you will be notified if your poster is accepted. Once your poster is accepted we are asking you to upload a copy of your poster and a short video, to be considered for the poster competition. The deadline for the poster and video is June 15th.
Poster Sessions Co-Chairs
Giulia Pedrielli
Arizona State University
Ilbin Lee
University of Alberta
How the Poster Competition Works
Participation in the poster competition is voluntary. That is, an author may elect to enter the General Poster session and make a poster presentation without entering the competition. For those who wish to compete, the committee and judges will review the posters and let you know before the conference if you are accepted to the competition. If you are not accepted as part of the competition, you will automatically be a part of the General Poster session. The recognition includes a certificate, an award check, and announcements on INFORMS newsletters, OR/MS Today, INFORMS Connect, and on the INFORMS website
Before the Annual Meeting
Step 1. Abstract Submission: Only one poster abstract submission will be permitted per presenting author. For the poster submission, the following items are needed by May 23, 2025: contact information for yourself and any co-authors, the title, a 50-word abstract, and a poster in PDF format. You must select an option when entering your information to indicate if you wish to be part of the competition.
Step 2. Poster Review for Competition and Scheduling (Pre-Conference Round):
If you would like to enter this competition, you are required to submit a soft copy of your poster (in pdf format) by June 15, 2025 together with a short presentation video (maximum 5 minutes recording). You can indicate your participation during the submission procedure.
Poster video submission. By June 15th 2025, you will need to upload a video presentation of your work that is at most five minutes in length.
On site, the Chairs and judges will screen a selected group of posters participating in the competition. Poster authors participating in the competition will be notified whether their work is being considered within this subgroup by July 15th. The chairs will determine the presentation time (Monday or Tuesday) and assign judges accordingly. The schedule will be announced before the conference.
During the Annual Meeting
Step 3. On site Round:
On the assigned day (Monday or Tuesday), poster presenters should bring a hard copy of their poster and hang it in the specified area of the exhibit hall before the scheduled poster session.
We recommend hanging your poster when exhibits open at 9am on your assigned day to give attendees extra time to review your research. Please remove your poster promptly at 2pm.
After the Annual Meeting
Further Recognition: The winners of the poster competition will be announced on the INFORMS website, in INFORMS newsletters, and in OR/MS Today.
Poster Preparation Guidelines & Instructions
Minimal Requirements
Poster: Each presenter in the Poster Competition should submit their poster in the form of a 1-page PDF file in landscape orientation and bring a hard copy to the annual meeting. The poster orientation should be done horizontally/landscape. Thumbtacks/pins will be used to hang the posters up on the board. However, other sizes are acceptable, if they do not exceed the bulletin board dimensions of 48″ tall x 96″ wide.
Suggested Best Practices
For all posters, please follow these guidelines:
- Maintain a good contrast between background and foreground text.
- Avoid acronyms and extensive mathematical notation as much as possible.
- Include one or more of the following: a brief description of the problem, objectives of the work, the methodology utilized, conclusions, relevant diagrams, and graphs and charts, in order to present an overview of the application.
- Organize your poster into sections, e.g., Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions, and Literature Cited. (Avoid using too many citations.) You may wish to use numbers to help sequence sections of the poster.
- Arrange the material into columns.
- The title should be readable from 15–20 feet (approximately 4.5–6 meters) away.
- The text should be large enough to be read easily from at least 6 feet (approximately 2 meters) away.
- The poster should not rely upon your verbal explanation to link together the various portions.
- Avoid densely packed, high word-count posters. Posters with 800 words or less are ideal.
- Self-explanatory graphics should dominate the poster.
- Below are webpages that provide more guidelines and free poster templates
- http://www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/cpurrin1/posteradvice.htm
