John K. Walker, Jr. Award

The Walker Award is awarded annually to the author(s) of the technical article judged to be the best published in the Phalanx, MORS' quarterly magazine, during the previous calendar year. This is in contrast to the Phalanx Editors’ Award, which recognizes the best non-technical article published in the Phalanx during the previous calendar year.


Oral HistoryShort Biography

Purpose

  • To establish a memorial to John K. Walker, Jr., a respected colleague, Phalanx Editor for twelve years and Phalanx Editor Emeritus for seven years, who by his long-term involvement with MORS gave so much of enduring value to the national security operations research community.
  • To give evidence to the belief of MORS that operations research represents people who apply scientific method to build quantitative models, manipulate data, evaluate results and publish these results in a suitable form in the magazine.

  • To emphasize that the Phalanx promotes communication among practitioners of national security operations research that is timely, important, and interesting to the Phalanx audience.

Jack served MORS for over 25 years, including two terms on the MORS Board of Directors. He was President of the Society (1974-1975), one of the original MORS Fellows of the Society (FS) in 1989, and a Wanner Award laureate in 1990. Jack served as Phalanx editor from August 1979 (Volume 12, Number 2) until December 1991 (Volume 24, Number 4) and as Editor Emeritus until his death. In 1999, MORS established the Jack K. Walker, Jr. Award in his honor to recognize the best technical article published in Phalanx during the previous year.

Given Jack’s significant contributions to MORS, E.B. Vandiver asked me to do a biography of Jack Walker that covered the same kind of territory that we typically do in our MORS oral histories. Van knew Jack from way back when.

This biographical sketch of Jack (born June 2, 1919; died January 29, 1998) was compiled with the aid of substantial material provided by members of Jack’s family. In the June 1944 Normandy Invasion, Operation Overlord, Jack arrived at Omaha Beach, Normandy on D+17 and served in northern Europe until the surrender of the Axis powers. During World War II (WWII) and during the Vietnam War, Jack wrote several letters to his parents and to his sisters. Jack’s WWII unit’s actions were chronicled in Anti-Anything: 486th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion, 1945, edited by Major John K. Walker, Jr., and Captain Ralph W. Abele. We extracted several sections from that publication. We were also greatly assisted by the cooperation of Jack’s daughters and his niece, who willingly participated in oral history interviews. The interviews were conducted on the following dates: Anne Soukhanov (Jack’s niece and goddaughter), April 14, 2019, and October 30, 2019; Viktoria “Vickey” Badger (Jack’s youngest daughter), December 13, 2019; Sara Woodard (Jack’s middle daughter), July 1, 2020; Madeleine “Nonnie” Mullin (Jack’s oldest daughter) on December 8, 2020. We also interviewed Natalie Kelly (former MORS Vice President for Administration), July 15, 2020, to capture her stories about working with Jack on Phalanx.

Criteria

The MORS Prizes and Awards Committee and Phalanx editorial staff will identify and recognize members of our profession who have expanded the application of national security operations research techniques, improved their set of analytical tools, and communicated the results of their work to the broader analytic community by publishing an article in Phalanx.

  • Individuals must have published a technical article during the previous calendar year whose content is judged to be timely, interesting, and important to the Phalanx audience.
  • Each article will be judged on the basis of its ability to communicate to the national security operations research community the ideas of the author(s) clearly, concisely, and unambiguously.
  • Current Sponsors, members of the Board of Directors, members of the Phalanx and MOR Journal editorial staff, and members of the MORS Publications Committee are not eligible for the Walker Award.

Past Award Winners

2024Mr. Matthew Cosner, Dr. Sandra Beaulieu, Mr. Alexander Phan, and Ms. Emily Williams
Modeling the Persistence Capabilities of Distributed Sea-Based Aircraft
Volume 56, Number 2
2023Dr. Roy E. Rice, FS
Calculating the Probability of Successfully Executing the Kill Chain
to Analyze Hypersonics
Volume 55, Number 1
2022Captain Jason C. Courtoy and MAJ Nathaniel Bastian
Three Things Leaders Need to Know Before Investing in Artificial Intelligence
Volume 54, Number 1
2021Captain Courtney Thompson, Professor Tom Lucas, and Ms. Mary McDonald
Estimating the Effects of Combat Load Weight on Mission Outcomes
Volume 53, Number 1
2020Shaun Doheney, LCDR Connor S. McLemore, and Sam L. Savage
Operational Readiness Rollup
Volume 52, Number 3
2019Major Amber Coleman and Chief Warrant Officer Amanda Aultman
Marine Corps Logistics Command Warehouse Optimization Model
Volume 51, Number 3
2018MAJ Katherine A. Batterton and CAPT Kimberly N. Hale
The Likert Scale: What It Is and How to Use It
Volume 50 Number 2
2017Mr. Marvin B. Schaffer
Boost-Phase Missile Defense: Another Look at Space and Air-Air Engagements
Volume 49 Number 1
2016Major Brian Wade and Mr. Paul Chang
New Measures of Effectiveness for the Air and Missile Defense Simulation Community
Volume 48 Number 4
2015Dr. Yuna Huh Wong
Preparing for Contemporary Analytic Challenges
Volume 47 Number 4
2014Jaspreet S. Dhillon, Eric K. Ebersole, and Gene W. Loughran
Multi-INT Fusion in Afghanistan: A look at the Division Level
Volume 46 Number 4
2013Clifford D. Tompkins, Douglas A. Boerman, and Major Walter J. Lesinski III
Risk-Assessment Framework
Volume 45 Number 4
2012Col Karl Gingrich, CDR Matthew Shane, and Maj Matthew Durkin
Measuring Quality of the ANSF
Volume 44, Number 1
2011Neil Carson and Jean-Denis Caron
The Maritime Timeline Analysis and Requirements Toolset (M-TART)
Volume 43, Number 4
2010Leroy A. "Jack" Jackson and MAJ Jonathan K. Alt
Bayesian Networks for the Human Element
Volume 42, Number 2
2009Peter Perla
So a Wargamer and a Black Swan Walk into a Bar
Volume 41, Number 4
2008Roy E. Rice, FS
Quantifying “Persistence” in the Context of Find-Fix-Finish (FFF)
Volume 40, Number 2
2007Gregory Boylan, Bobbie L. Foote, and Roger Burk
Loitering Aircraft as a Capability Added for Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems
Volume 39, Number 1
2006LTC David Briggs
Modeling Army Officer Promotions
Volume 38, Number 4
2005Peter A. Davidson
Modeling Precision Munitions: The Average Isn't Good Enough
Volume 37, Number 1
2004MAJ Rob Kewley and LTC Larry Larimer
An Agent Based Modeling Approach to Quantifying the Value of Battlefield Information
Volume 36, Number 2
2003Major William Vinyard and Professor Tom Lucas
Exploring Combat Models for Non-Monotonicities and Remedies
Volume 35, Number 1
2002Professor Alan R. Washburn
Bits, Bangs or Bucks? The Coming Information Crisis
Part I, Volume 34, Number 3 and Part II, Volume 34, Number 4
2001Richard R. Laferriere and Stephen M. Robinson
Scenario Analysis in US Army Decision Making
Volume 33, Number 1
2000James P. Ignizio
System Stability: A Proxy for Graceful Degradation
Volume 32, Number 1

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