Dear Colleagues,
For the Western Decision Sciences Institute (WDSI) Board, it is my great honor and privilege to extend a warm welcome to the 2025 WDSI Conference in Waikiki, Hawaii. We are grateful for your presence, especially those who are new members and first-time attendees, hoping they will continue to be active members of the WDSI and DSI communities. I was appointed the Track Chair of Management Science and Quantitative Methods by the current treasurer, Sheldon Smith, about 15 years ago. Later, a past president, Albert Huang, contacted me about joining a WDSI board member as a VP for advancement, which requires six-year commitments. It is my honor and privilege to serve as the 2025 WDSI Conference Program Chair.
As I have begun my journey as a student DSI member since the 1994 DSI Conference in Hawaii, it is truly my honor to serve as the 2025 WDSI Conference in Hawaii. WDSI members have contributed to various academic disciplines by addressing current industry trends such as artificial intelligence (AI) and its applications and business analytics. To accommodate the increases in AI studies, WDSI has decided to introduce a new track solely dedicated to AI and its applications from the 2026 WDSI Conference in Vancouver, Canada. In addition, WDSI members have significantly contributed to teaching as proven by the number of presentations in the Innovative Education Track. Accordingly, I believe that WDSI members have been successful in their field through teaching supported by research.
As WDSI is run by volunteers, I am sincerely grateful to the volunteers who have made WDSI Conferences successful. Their tireless efforts and contributions have made WDSI Conferences valuable to all attendees. In this year, although we have attendees mostly from the Western regions of the United States, there are also many attendees from the other regions such as Midwest and Eastern regions. In addition, we have over 30 international attendees from countries such as Australia (1), Canada (5), China (4), Germany (2), Italy (1), Japan (1), Netherland (1), New Zealand (1), Portugal (2), South Korea (3), and Taiwan (10). Accordingly, we have great opportunities to network with colleagues in different regions and countries.
We are delighted to meet at the 2025 WDSI Conference in Waikiki, Hawaii. The objectives of the conference are to share new research ideas and/or best teaching practices and to network with colleagues in different regions and countries. I extend my deepest gratitude to all those who have worked tirelessly to bring this event to fruition, including past Presidents and Immediate Past President Pia Gupta for their past leadership of WDSI. I would like to extend my special thanks to current President Ed He for his guidance and friendship, to President Elect Stan Griffis for his guidance, and to WDSI Treasurer Sheldon Smith for his continued generous guidance, WDSI Director of Information Systems, Tom Lang for his superb support. I also sincerely thank the 2026 Program Chair, Shuo Zeng, for his tireless efforts in developing the conference program. I also thank Mahyar Amouzegar, Omer Benli, Theodore Byrne, Albert Huang, Khosrow Moshirvaziri, and many other WDSI colleagues for your continued service to the organization.
I am grateful to all the 2025 Track Chairs, Junior Faculty and Best Paper Awards Committee members, Vivian Landrum, Executive Director of DSI, our parent organization, our financial sponsors for their contributions, and Alyssalyn Buyuan, Event Manager at Marriott Waikiki. Finally, I want to thank you, our conference attendees, for your contributions, which are critical to the success of this conference.
As we have made the 2025 WDSI conference successful, I hope we can do it again at the next conference in Vancouver, Canada.
Sincerely,
Seong-Jong Joo, Air Force Institute of Technology
WDSI 2025 Vice-President, Program Chair