Subject to: Paolo Toth

Paolo Toth is "Professor Emeritus" of “Operations Research” at DEI: (Department of Electrical and Information Engineering “Guglielmo Marconi”, Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna,
A.D. 1088), where he was Full Professor from 1983 to 2011. His research interests include Operations Research and Mathematical Programming methodologies and, in particular, the design and implementation of effective exact and heuristic algorithms for Combinatorial Optimization and Graph Theory problems, and their application to real-world Transportation, Logistics, Loading, Routing, Crew Management, Railway Optimization problems. He is author of more than 190 papers published in international journals and of the book "Knapsack Problems: Algorithms and Computer Implementations" (coauthor S. Martello; J. Wiley, 1990). He is also Co-editor of the books "The Vehicle Routing Problem" (SIAM Monographs on Discrete Mathematics and Applications, 2002) and "Vehicle Routing: Problems, Methods and Applications” (MOS-SIAM Series on Optimization, 2014). He was President of EURO (Association of the European Operational Research Societies) for the period 1995-1996, and President of IFORS (International Federation of the Operational Research Societies) for the period 2001-2003. He acted as Chair of the Program Committee for the Triennial IFORS Conference in 1999. He received several international awards, among which: the "EURO Gold Medal" (the highest distinction within Operations Research in Europe) in 1998; the "Robert Herman Lifetime Achievement Award in Transportation Science" (from INFORMS) in 2005; the "INFORMS Fellowship" in 2016; the “EURO Distinguished Service Award” in 2019; the "IFORS Fellowship" in 2020. In May 2003, the University of Montreal conferred him a "Doctorate honoris causa" in Operational Research. In October 2012, at the INFORMS Annual Meeting), he delivered the “IFORS Distinguished Plenary Lecture”; in July 2023, at the IFORS Triennial Conference, he delivered the “EURO Plenary Address”. He supervised more than 200 master theses, 25 PhD students from 6 different countries, and 16 Post-Docs.

Contents of this video:
0:00 - Intro
2:12 - Zara/Zadar
3:32 - Family background
6:04 - Italy after WWII
6:50 - Fano
7:44 - Modena
8:26 - Boy scouting and Rugby
9:16 - Internazionale di Milano
10:12 - Music and movies
11:26 - Hitchhiking in western Europe in 1958 and 1959
14:17 - Motivation for studying Engineering
14:43 - BSc/MSc in Electronic Engineering (1962-1966) and no OR classes
16:03 - Using dynamic programming for the optimization of a hydroelectric power station
16:59 - Coding in the 1960s
21:33 - Joining the University of Bologna in 1966 as Teaching Assistant
22:00 - Corridor
24:22 - No PhD program
25:06 - Research on Discrete Event Numerical Simulation
26:14 - Getting married (1967), Assistant Professor (1972), Associate Professor (1975)
26:42 - The arrival of Combinatorial Optimization in Bologna in 1974
28:00 - AIRO
29:54 - Silvano Martello
30:42 - Beginning to work on Knapsack problems in 1975 and attending the first International conference
32:33 - First papers in international journals
35:02 - Beginning to work on the Vehicle Routing Problem and collaborating with Aristide Mingozzi and Nicos Chriostofides
36:55 - Co-organizing a school (1977) and a book (1979) on Combinatorial Optimization
38:13 - Full professor in Florence (1980) and returning to Bologna (1983)
39:28 - Visiting Egon Balas at Carnegie Melon University in 1982 in 1987
42:11 - Combinatorial vs linear relaxations
47:32 - First PhD student in 1983: Matteo Fischetti
49:51 - On supervising a constellation of Italian starts
51:52 - Supervising students from South America and hosting international visiting researchers
55:05 - Meeting Paolo in 2011
56:31 - Book on Knapsack Problems
57:20 - Co-editing two editions of the book on the Vehicle Routing Problem
1:02:13 - IFORS anecdotes
1:07:24 - Doctorate honoris causa and collaboration with Gilbert Laporte
1:09:17 - Best thing Paolo ever did in his life
1:10:45 - Motivation to keep on doing relevant work
1:11:58 - Concluding remarks