Event Category: Operations Research Seminar Series

12/4/25 | 4:15pm | E51-145 Michael Lingzhi Li Assistant Professor of Business AdministrationHarvard Business School Abstract: This study addresses facility location problems in the context of drone delivery systems, which involves multiple stations and demand locations. Drones are deployed at selected stations to serve demand locations, with service time varying based on the distance between…

11/20/25 | 4:15pm | E51-145 Timothy Chan Associate Vice-President and Vice-Provost, Strategic Initiatives; Professor, Department of Mechanical and Industrial EngineeringUniversity of Toronto Abstract: Inverse optimization is increasingly used to estimate unknown parameters in an optimization model based on decision data. However, when such “point estimates” are used prescribe downstream decisions, the resulting decisions may be…

11/13/25 | 4:15pm | E51-145 Yuan Shi Winner of 2025 ORC Best Student Paper CompetitionMIT Abstract: Theoretical studies of sustainability incentives often assume rational decision-making, yet smallholder farmers exhibit behavioral regularities that impact their decisions. Large-scale field experiments in this domain face measurement difficulties, high costs, and long time horizons, thus limiting iterative testing of…

11/6/25 | 4:15pm | E51-145 Peng Sun JB Fuqua Professor in the Decision Science areaDuke Abstract: Malaria caused over 600,000 deaths in 2021, yet commercial incentives are weak for drug and vaccine development for malaria and other tropical diseases. Governments and nonprofits address these market failures through push (e.g., grants) and pull (e.g., prizes). We…

10/23/25 | 4:15pm | E51-145 Priya Donti Assistant Professor, MIT EECS and LIDSMIT Abstract: Addressing climate change will require concerted action across society, including the development of innovative technologies. While methods from machine learning (ML) have the potential to play an important role, these methods often struggle to contend with the physics, hard constraints, and…

10/16/25 | 4:15pm | E51-145 Gerard Cachon The Fred R. Sullivan Professor of Operations, Information, and DecisionsThe Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania Abstract: We study a delivery problem in which geographically dispersed demands are served from a central depot. The task is to choose a staffing level (number of servers) and an operating policy (when…

10/9/25 | 4:15pm | E51-145 Andres Gomez Associate Professor, Department of Industrial and Systems EngineeringUniversity of Southern California Abstract: Several classes of statistical learning problems can be formulated as mixed-integer nonlinear optimization problems. The continuous variables model statistical parameters to be inferred from data, discrete variables are used to encode logical considerations arising from the…

10/2/25 | 4:15pm | E51-145 Ping Xu VP – Inbound SystemsAmazon Abstract: In this survey talk, Ping Xu explores Amazon’s journey in applying AI to supply chain management, from early days of manual forecasting to current state-of-the-art AI systems. She frames this evolution through three phases: predictions (past), where Amazon transformed its 17-year-old legacy forecasting…

9/18/25 | 4:15pm | E51-145 Kostas Bimpikis Professor of Operations, Information and TechnologyStanford Graduate School of Business Abstract: Maritime transportation accounts for 90% of global trade, but ballasting—vessels traveling without cargo—imposes substantial economic and environmental costs. This paper examines the oil transportation industry, where approximately half of all miles traveled are sailed empty. While some…

9/11/25 | 4:15pm | E51-145 Santiago Balseiro George E. Warren Professor of BusinessGraduate School of Business, Columbia University Abstract: Generative AI inference, the process of using a trained generative artificial intelligence model to generate outputs, requires substantial processing power and expensive computational resources. The growing popularity of Generative AI models has placed unprecedented demands on…