Operations Research

Operations Research (OR) is a scientific, mathematical modeling-based approach to problem solving and management. OR is used for the efficient design and management of systems, usually seeking to determine an optimal or effective utilization and allocation of scarce resources. OR is widely used in many diverse application areas, e.g., the design and management of service and manufacturing systems, supply chain management, humanitarian logistics, healthcare and public policy. The curriculum provides a methodological foundation, and is flexible, allowing students to focus on methodological research or applications. More information about OR can be obtained from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), the main professional society for OR, and also from the Institute of Industrial & Systems Engineers (IISE), another professional society that includes OR.

What do Operations Researchers do?

Operations Research (OR) is the application of scientific and mathematical methods to the analysis, management, and design of complex systems, and analytics is the use of data to gain insight into systems and improve decision-making. Thus, OR and analytics are fundamental to management and decision science, and are used extensively to develop policies and strategies for complex systems (e.g., enterprises), as well as their operational management. This research area studies theoretical aspects of OR and analytics tools such as mathematical programming, simulation (e.g., discrete event, Monte Carlo, system dynamics, agent based) and stochastic processes, statistics and probability, queuing networks, system science, network optimization, decision sciences, machine learning, and others. These tools address problems arising in healthcare and medicine, public policy, manufacturing, telecommunications, supply chain and logistics, and intelligent infrastructure, among others, and are essential to understand and manage today’s complex systems and organizations.

Graduate Programs in Operations Research

Master's Level	Doctoral Level
M.S. and MEng in Operations Research	Ph.D. in Operations Research

Research in Operations Research

Mathematical Programming (Integer Programming, Stochastic Programming, Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Programming)
Machine Learning; Algorithms
Data-Driven Optimization
Graph and Network Optimization
Simulation modeling
Simulation analysis methodology
Simulation optimization
Uncertainty Quantification
Healthcare and public policy research regarding data analysis, statistics, simulation, optimization, queuing theory
Production, supply chain and logisitcs rsearch regarding optimization, scheduling, delivery, data analysis, homeland security