Title: Berkeley IEOR Seminar Series: John Carlsson, USC Viterbi
Title: Continuous approximation models for some modern logistical problems”
Abstract: Continuous approximation modelling is a logistical paradigm with origins at UC Berkeley in which detailed operational data is replaced by statistical summaries to analyze large-scale routing and distribution problems. This presentation introduces some new applications of computational geometry and geometric probability theory to study modern problems in last-mile delivery, districting, and order fulfillment. Building on the seminal 1959 Beardwood-Halton-Hammersley theorem, we give analytical frameworks that characterize the optimal solutions for various problems in an asymptotic limit as demand becomes large.
Bio: John Gunnar Carlsson is the Kellner Family Associate Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Southern California. He serves as an associate editor for Operations Research, Management Science, and Transportation Science, and his research is concerned with applications of computational geometry and probability theory to problems in transportation and logistics. He is the recipient of the TSL Best Paper Award (Freight SIG), the ICS Prize, young investigator awards from DARPA and AFOSR, and is an INFORMS Edelman Fellow. Popular Science Magazine named him one of the “10 most brilliant people of 2016”, giving him the nickname “the man who re-routes the world using geometry”.