I am Professor of Operations and Industrial Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), with courtesy professorships in Mathematical Sciences and Data Science. I hold a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh. My objective is to use science and technology to assist real human need by improving systems that serve vulnerable peoples, such as refugees and asylum seekers, survivors of human trafficking, and children in the foster care system. I believe that the convergence of novel analytical technologies and open-source software can create solutions that improve quality of life, increase fairness, restore dignity, and generate significant societal impact. My research focuses on using prescriptive (integer optimization) and predictive (machine learning) analytics, together with algorithms, to effectively allocate scarce resources.

Weixiao Huang is a Ph.D. candidate majoring in Data Science at WPI. She holds a Master of Science Degree in Biostatistics from the University of California, Davis. She has done internships at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and Sanofi. Her research interests are in the development and application of market design, auction in practice, and integer optimization to solve practical problems that benefit society. She is currently focusing on resource sharing and collective impact empowering in the nonprofit sector. Meanwhile, she delves into subjects concerning efficiency, interpretability, and fairness.

Marcela is a Ph.D. candidate in Data Science at WPI. She holds a Master's in Industrial Engineering from the Federal University of Pernambuco, in Brazil. Marcela has worked in the supply chain industry, particularly on vehicle routing. During her Master's, she used Machine Learning models to address stochasticity in a retailer stock management optimization problem. She is currently working on refugee professional integration and using integer optimization to optimize many-to-many stable matching of refugees to job opportunities. Her current research interests are in applications of Operations Research combined with Machine Learning for social impact.

Fatemeh is pursuing her Ph.D. in Data Science at WPI, having earned her Master's in Industrial Engineering from Sharif University of Technology. During her Master's studies, she pioneered methods to optimize drone deliveries for the efficient transportation of goods. Her focus is applying advanced analytical techniques to address operational challenges that arise in refugee resettlement and humanitarian decision-making initiatives. She has been part of the RUTH (Refugees Uniting Through HIAS) development team, an algorithmic system that matches Ukrainian refugees with U.S. sponsors, prioritizing fairness and efficiency. She is currently researching challenges that exist in managing migration crises through the fair and humane allocation of necessary resources at international borders.

Sepideh is pursuing her PhD in Operation Management at WPI. She holds a Master's degree in Industrial Engineering from Sharif University of Technology, Iran. Her research interests include using mathematical optimization and operations research methods to address humanitarian challenges. She is currently focusing on bed allocation and capacity planning under demand uncertainty in the foster care system.

Özge is a Ph.D. student in the Data Science program at WPI. She holds an Industrial Engineering Bachelor of Science degree from Bilkent University in Turkey, and an MS in Data Science from WPI. Her master thesis presents a novel data-driven framework that enables universities to optimize their resources under a variety of enrollment scenarios. Her research interests include interactive mathematical optimization applications that enable decision makers to interact with the model and output. In the future, she hopes to continue being a part of the operations research community and make contributions with her research.

Arjun Venat is a Computer Science and Data Science double major at WPI, graduating in May 2025. His research interests include Interactive Optimization, or using Human-Computer Interaction to enhance the flexibility of an optimization model, and Machine Learning. He is currently working on developing and simulating mechanisms for nonprofits to equitably share resources. He hopes to further his interest Interactive Optimization both through research opportunities and a career in the industry after he completes his BS.

Teodor Hellgren is an undergraduate student pursuing a double major in Mathematical Sciences and Computer Science, graduating in 2026. His research focuses on mathematical optimization, especially in humanitarian efforts and general scheduling. He’s currently working on improving refugee resettlement in the United States by analyzing current practices and creating recommendations for best practices to improve outcomes for refugees. He’s also working on a project to optimally assign first-year students at WPI to a specific course schedule based on their preferences, major requirements, and available course seats. After graduating, he hopes to earn a Master's degree in Data Sciences.

Dr. Narges Ahani is currently a Vice-President Operations Research Analyst III at Bank of America. She received her PhD in Data Science from WPI in May of 2022. At WPI, she designed and implemented a decision-making tool for refugee resettlement in the U.S. called Annie™ MOORE which integrates integer optimization and machine learning techniques into an interactive interface. She has conducted research on advanced analytical techniques to shape data-informed algorithmic solutions for complex decision-making problems.

Shima Azizi, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Business Analytics and Information Systems in the Peter J. Tobin College of Business at St. John’s University. She received her Ph.D. in Operations Management from WPI in May of 2022. Previously, she got her M.Sc. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Kurdistan, and her B.Sc. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Tabriz. Her research focuses on the use of advanced analytics, specifically operations research and data science, to solve practical problems in humanitarian operations, healthcare, and sustainability. At WPI, she investigated alleviating challenges within refugee camp systems, the United States foster care system, as well as the United States community paramedicine programs. More information about her work can be found on her website shimaazizi.com.

Dr. Geri Louise Dimas received her Ph.D. in Data Science Program from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in May 2023. She is now an Assistant professor at Bryant University in the Department of Information Systems and Analytics teaching Data Science courses. Dr. Dimas is also the Co-Director of the Institute for the Qualitative Study of Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity (QSIDE) Stopping Trafficking And Modern-day Slavery Project (STAMP) Lab. Her research focuses on applications of applied analytics and data science at the intersection of societal issues such as immigration, anti-human trafficking, and homelessness.

Dr. Wen Liu is currently an Optimization Engineer at Meta. She received her Ph.D. in Data Science from WPI in 2019. She has publications in operations research and user experience, as well as practical experiences in statistical analysis, machine learning, and natural language processing. At WPI, she worked in mathematical optimization, user experience experiment and eye tracking techniques. She is proficient in programming and developing MLOps and has a proven tracking record in driving appropriate solutions and delivering business values.

Dr. Pitchaya Wiratchotisatian is a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor at Khon Kaen University in Thailand. She received her PhD in Data Science in August of 2021. Her research interests include Integer Programming, Allocation Optimization, Data Mining, and Machine Learning. She has worked on a mathematical reformulation technique that linearizes polynomial functions of integer variables of any degree and shows through computational experiments that it is effective in solving large integer optimization problems, indicating its potential for real-world applications. She has also worked on stability in solving many-to-one matching problems.

Ryan Killea obtained his Master’s in Data Science from WPI in July of 2023. His research interests are in Operations Research and Optimization, Algorithms, and Machine Learning. The topic of his thesis was designing algorithms to efficiently solve and reason about parameterized nonlinear integer optimization problems with a priori partially unknown constraints. He has also co-developed RUTH: an algorithmic preference-based matching tool for refugee sponsorship in the United States. He hopes to contribute to problems in Humanitarian Operations that employ insights gained from hard-to-solve optimization problems.

Elise is pursuing a Master's in Computer Science, with a Bachelor's in Industrial Engineering. Her research interests are in using mathematical optimization for the greater good. She is currently working to help nonprofits share and exchange resources efficiently to meet their needs. She hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in Operations Research to further explore mathematical optimization and address disparities.

Frederick "Forrest" Miller was a Mathematical Sciences (BS) and Data Science (BS) double major at WPI, graduating in May 2023. His research interests lie in optimization problems that have real-world impact. He has worked on developing algorithms and frameworks to maximize societal benefit-to-cost ratios while at ARCHES. Forrest was also the President of the WPI Math Club and served as a Peer Learning Assistant for the Math Department. He is starting a Ph.D. at Northeastern University in Mathematics starting Fall 2023. More information about his work can be found on his website fimiller.github.io.