Welcome to my corner of academia and research expertise! I am an Associate Professor with a joint appointment in the Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering and the Department of Marketing at the Robert J. Trulaske Sr. College of Business, University of Missouri (MU). I am also the Director for Graduate Studies for the Industrial & Systems Engineering department.
The core focus of my research is to develop novel theories and methods to effectively solve complex operations research (OR) problems that address societal needs and national priorities. With the advent of Industry 5.0, which focuses on societal values, mass customizations and human-machine cooperation, the need to address new OR problems that have real-world implications in fields such as supply chain, manufacturing, logistics/transportation, healthcare, biomedical informatics, and other service systems are increasing. As a result, I am motivated by the prominent challenges in developing novel frameworks, techniques and tools for use-inspired OR problems to enable faster and smarter decisions in the aforementioned thrust areas.
Along with my team of students and collaborators, I aim to conduct innovative and transformative research that leads to the creation of new knowledge, and scalable solution approaches for optimizing societal as well as business applications using data analytics, optimization, machine learning, and heuristic algorithms. My research program builds on my interest to theorize, model, solve and analyze current as well as emerging use-inspired OR problems with the aim of deriving technical advancements, practical/policy implications, and societal impacts. My research includes the development of fundamental and applied innovations involving discrete optimization (exact and approximate algorithms), stochastic models/sequential decision-making, simulation, data analytics and machine learning. My scholarly work has been strengthened by multidisciplinary, multi-institution collaborators and students, whom I have recruited, supported and advised.
I have focused on building my research portfolio through strategic collaborations, industry partnerships and sponsored projects funded by industry as well as state/federal government agencies. My research has received over $2.3M in funding (as PI and Co-PI) and the sponsors include: National Science Foundation (NSF), Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), US Economic Development Administration (EDA), Alaska Department of Transportation (AKDOT), Missouri Dept. of Higher Education and Workforce Development (MDHEWD), Schneider Electric, Roche Pharmaceuticals, Boeing, Rebundle, and Trinity Products. My scholarly activities have led to 35 peer-reviewed journal articles, 45+ conference abstracts/proceedings, 1 edited book, 4 book chapters, and 2 provisional patents.
At MU, I bring my expertise to the classroom, teaching a diverse range of undergraduate, graduate, and MBA-level courses. The core topics covered in my courses include data analytics, machine learning, simulation, service systems, and supply chain optimization. I am an active member of INFORMS and IISE professional societies and has served numerous times as a track chair and session chair in their annual conferences. I am also the editorial board member for Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review journal and Topic Editor for Sustainability journal.
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Education
- PhD, Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, Pennsylvania State University, USA
- MEng, Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, Pennsylvania State University, USA
- MS, Industrial and Systems Engineering, Binghamton University, USA
- BE, Industrial Engineering, College of Engineering-Guindy, Anna University, India
Recent News
- Sep 2024: Promoted to Associate Professor with tenure at the University of Missouri
- Aug 2024: NSF CyberTraining Grant Awarded for project titled “CyberTraining: Implementation: Small: Application-inspired Cloud DevOps Training using an Online Self-service Learning Platform” (PI: Prasad Calyam, Co-PIs: Sharan Srinivas, Noah Glaser) NSF PFI-TT Public Abstract.
- Jul 2024: Appointed as the Editorial Board Member for BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making journal
- Feb 2024: Appointed as the Editorial Board Member for Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review journal
- Dec 2023: Voted by Graduating Seniors as the Outstanding Professor in Industrial and Systems Engineering for Fall 2023.
- Sep 2023: Department of Defense (DoD) flow-through Grant Awarded for project titled “Analysis Capabilities for Competition, Crisis, and Combat (AC4)” (PI: James Noble, Co-PI: Sharan Srinivas, Suchithra Rajendran)
- Sep 2023: Alaska Department of Transportation Research Grant Awarded for project titled “Development of an intelligent truck transport management application for freight and fuel movement through route optimization, scenario analysis, and incident management” (PI: Sharan Srinivas, Co-PIs: Suchithra Rajendran, Prasad Calyam).
- Aug 2023: NSF PFI-TT Grant Awarded for project titled “PFI-TT: Cloud-based Route Management Platform for Optimizing Last-Mile Logistics of Electric Truck and Drone Operations” (PI: Sharan Srinivas, Co-PIs: Suchithra Rajendran, Prasad Calyam) NSF PFI-TT Public Abstract.
- May 2023: Paper titled “Collaborative truck multi-drone delivery system considering drone scheduling and en route operations” accepted for publication in Annals of Operations Research.
- Mar 2023: Received 2023 Outstanding Junior Excellence in Teaching Award” from MU College of Engineering.
- Apr 2023: NSF IRES Grant Awarded for project titled “International Research Experiences for Students in AI-Enabled Decision Analytics for Advancing Air Taxi and Drone Operations” (PI: Suchithra Rajendran, Co-PI: Sharan Srinivas, Prasad Calyam, Derek Anderson) NSF IRES Public Abstract
- Feb 2023: NSF REU Grant Awarded for project titled “Research on Prescriptive Analytics for AI-enabled Operations Engineering” (PI: Suchithra Rajendran, Co-PI: Sharan Srinivas, Prasad Calyam) NSF REU Public Abstract
- Dec 2022: Paper titled “Passenger intelligence as a competitive opportunity: unsupervised text analytics for discovering airline-specific insights from online reviews” accepted for publication in Annals of Operations Research.
- Dec 2022: Paper titled “It is about inclusion! Mining online reviews to understand the needs of adaptive clothing customers” accepted for publication in International Journal of Consumer Studies.
- Dec 2022: Paper titled “Explainable machine learning framework for predicting long-term cardiovascular disease risk among adolescents” accepted for publication in Scientific Reports.
- Oct 2022: Received Outstanding IMSE Faculty Award” for excellence in research, teaching and service from MU IMSE Hall of Fame.
- Sep 2022: Paper titled “Collaborative order picking with multiple pickers and robots: Integrated approach for order batching, sequencing and picker-robot routing” accepted for publication in International Journal of Production Economics.
- Aug 2022: NSF I-Corps Grant Awarded for project titled “A Scalable Cloud-based Route Optimization Software for Efficient Aerial and Road Logistics” (PI: Sharan Srinivas) NSF REU Public Abstract.
- Jul 2022: Paper titled “Autonomous robot-driven deliveries: A review of recent developments and future directions” accepted for publication in Trasportation Research Part E.
- Jun 2022: Paper titled “Collaborative truck multi-drone routing and scheduling problem: Package delivery with flexible launch and recovery sites” accepted for publication in Trasportation Research Part E.
- Dec 2021: Research work featured among Top 10 Stories of 2021 at MU College of Engineering
- Sep 2021: Grant awarded by Boeing (Co-I: Srinivas, PI: Noble)
- Aug 2021: Grant awarded by Missouri Dept of Higher Education and Workforce Development (PI: Srinivas, Co-Is: Seo, Scott, Matisziw)
- May 2021: Appointed as Academic Editor for the Journal of Healthcare Engineering
- Mar 2021: Appointed as Core Faculty at the MU Institute of Data Science and Informatics
- Feb 2021: Paper titled “Predicting Demand for Air Taxi Urban Aviation Services using Machine Learning Algorithms” accepted for publication in Journal of Air Transport Management.
- Nov 2020: Best Paper Finalist for research titled “Discovering Airline-specific Business Intelligence FromOnline Passenger Reviews: An Unsupervised Text Analytics Approach” at the INFORMS Data Mining and Decision Analytics Competition, INFORMS Annual Meeting.
- Sep 2020: Paper titled “Air Taxi Service for Urban Mobility: A Critical Review of Recent Developments, Future Challenges, and Opportunities.” has been accepted for publication in Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review.
- Aug 2020: Paper titled “Modeling and Analysis of Business Process Reengineering Strategies for Improving Emergency Department Efficiency” has been accepted for publication in Simulation: Transactions of the Society for Modeling and Simulation International.
- Aug 2020: PhD student, Mohamed Salama, passed his comprehensive exam
- July 2020: Grant awarded by Roche Molecular Systems (along with investigators Drs. Richard Hammer and Suchithra Rajendran)
- May 2020: Elected to serve as Director for IISE OR Division