Dear Colleagues,
As the representative of the WDSI Board, it is my great pleasure to extend a warm welcome to the 2024 Western Decision Sciences Institute (WDSI) Conference in Santa Rosa, California. We are grateful for your presence, and we extend a sincere welcome to our new members, hoping they will become an integral part of our organization and support WDSI and DSI.
I am honored to serve as this year's Program Chair and am looking forward to continuing the celebration of our professional achievements while building stronger and lasting relationships as we embark on this journey together. Over the past 50+ years, WDSI members have made significant contributions in research, teaching, and practice, impacting many disciplines. Our conference provides an opportunity to share our ideas and exchange thoughts on how to continue charting our journey forward to reach new heights. At WDSI, everyone associated with putting on the conference is a volunteer, so thank you to everyone helping get this conference to come together. We pride ourselves on personal and genuine connections, building a community of constructive support for each other’s careers and development, and prioritizing the experience of coming together annually. Our vision is to continue fostering these relationships and creating value for our current and future members. We hope that this conference will allow our members to reflect on and celebrate their past accomplishments, renew friendships, and extend their networks. As a member of WDSI who has (oddly) never
resided in the Western part of the US but was brought to the conference at the dawn of my career, I recognize we all get to choose the people we affiliate with and I’m so thankful to have been introduced to WDSI by one of our past Presidents, John Bell, early on.
We are delighted to come together for this year's conference. Our aim is to provide our members with a platform to reconnect, inspire one another, and generate new ideas. I extend my deepest gratitude to all those who have worked tirelessly to bring this event to fruition, including Past President Theodore Byrne, and Immediate Past President Salem Boumediene, for their past leadership of WDSI. I would like to extend my special thanks to current President Pia Gupta for her guidance, friendship and tutelage, and to WDSI Treasurer Sheldon Smith for his continued generous guidance, WDSI Director of Information Systems Khosrow Moshirvaziri for his sterling support, as well as Seong-Jong Joo, conference chair for 2025. I also heartily thank board member Shuo Zeng for his tireless efforts in developing the conference program. I also thank John Bell, Mahyar Amouzegar, David Yen, Albert Huang, Omer Benli, and many other WDSI colleagues for your continued service to the organization.
I thank all the 2024 Track Chairs, Awards Committee members, Vivian Landrum, Executive Director of DSI, our parent organization, and our financial sponsors for their contributions. Finally, I want to thank you, our conference participants, for your contributions, which form the foundation of this conference.
As we gather in Santa Rosa, let us build on our past achievements, look to the future with optimism and determination, and create a brighter future for WDSI and our profession.
Sincerely,
Stanley E. Griffis, Michigan State University
WDSI 2024 Vice-President, Program Chair