Elaine Chew was Georgia Perakis’ first PhD student; Georgia signed her PhD thesis signed on the eve of the year 2000. Soulaymane Kachani, Senior Vice Provost at Columbia University, can also claim this honour, as the first student to start his PhD with Georgia as superviser. Both were invited to speak at a Conference in Honour of Georgia Perakis at the MIT Samberg Conference Centre on Saturday, 14 March 2026.
The Institute’s leaders, Georgia’s former PhD students (34 graduated to date), colleagues, and industry partners were amongst those who attended the conference and dinners.
Georgia’s signature on Elaine’s thesis, together with those of her doctoral supervisor Jeanne Bamberger and then ORC co-director Cynthia Barnhart. A rare instance in Operations Research or Engineering where all three signatories were women. This was the first (and to date only) PhD thesis on music to have emerged from the OR Center; it also led to the first (and also to date only) book on music in the Springer ORMS Series.
Georgia’s celebration was also an occasion for Elaine to meet other former professors, including her Masters thesis supervisor, Dimitris Bertsimas.
Elaine was also super-proud to catch up with former student Anna Cheng-Zhi Huang, now an Associate Professor in Music and Theater Arts and in EECS at MIT, and to meet Anna’s Masters student and incoming PhD student Heidi Lei while at MIT.
