Aalto University: Scientific Research of Pekka Korhonen Celebrated at Decision Analytics Seminar

An international seminar on ‘Decision Analytics’ was organized jointly by Emeritus Professor Jyrki Wallenius, the Department of Information and Service Management at Aalto University School of Business, and the Doctoral Education Network on Systems Analysis, Decision Making, and Risk Management on August 14th, 2024 at the School of Business.

The purpose of the seminar was two-fold: to pay our respects to Professor Pekka Korhonen, who died this past January, and to take stock of the field of decision analytics and look into the future. ‘Pekka was an influential person in our field who did pioneering work in multiple objective optimization and productivity analysis,’ says Jyrki Wallenius.

The presentations focused on various aspects of decision analytics, decision analysis, multi-objective optimization, the role of AI, Data Envelopment Analysis, and clinical DSSs, and Pekka Korhonen’s pioneering role in our field. Dean Timo Korkeamäki opened the day which gathered 40–50 participants.

Assistant Professor Eeva Vilkkumaa, Associate Professor Juuso Liesiö, Associate Professor Pekka Malo (all from Aalto University School of Business), Professor Ahti Salo (Aalto University School of Science), Professor Murat Köksalan (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor), Professor Wojtek Michalowski  (Ottawa University), Professor Banu Lokman (Portsmouth University), Professor Majid Soleimani (University of Tehran), Assistant Professor Akram Dehnokhalaji (Aston Business School), and Emeritus Professor Jyrki Wallenius (with a presentation: Pekka Korhonen’s Contributions to Research, with my Personal Reflections) gave presentations in the seminar.

The atmosphere was beautifully summarized by one of the participants, Dr. Bhupinder Saini from University of Jyväskylä. ‘I really enjoyed the seminar, thank you for organizing it! I enjoyed the technical talks as well. Some of them are extremely relevant to some of my current projects. The seminar may have opened some opportunities for collaboration for me.’

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support from The HSE Support Foundation fr (Helsingin kauppakorkeakoulun tukisäätiö), The Foundation for Economic Education (Liikesivistysrahasto), and the Department of Information and Service Management, making our seminar possible.