Operations Research

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.