Kent Business School at the University of Kent invites applications for
two 36-month PhD studentships in the area of Operational Research and
Supply Chain Reliability starting September 1, 2007.
The two studentships, funded by EPSRC (Grant EP/E048552/1), will involve
working on a project entitled “Design and protection strategies for
critical infrastructure systems and supply chains”, under the supervision
of Dr. Maria Paola Scaparra.
The objective of the research is to develop novel optimization models and
advanced solution techniques for enhancing the reliability and security of
supply chains and critical infrastructure systems. This includes the
development of models for identifying supply chain configurations which
are inherently robust to external disruptions, as well as models for
determining the optimal allocation of protective resources among the
components of infrastructure systems that are already in place. The models
should include advanced features to reflect the complexity of today’s
logistic systems, such as stochastic elements, multiple objectives and
specialized structural constraints. Exact, heuristic and hybrid methods
will be investigated to solve the new complex models.
Applicants will join the Management Science Group at the University of
Kent (see http://www.kent.ac.uk/kbs/standard.php?page_id=113 for more
information). They will also be expected to spend one term in their second
year at one or more of the US academic institutions that form the project
partnership. These include Lehigh University, Northwestern University, and
the University of California at Santa Barbara. During these visits,
students will be supervised by distinguished experts in the field of
optimization and supply chains, namely Prof. Larry Snyder, Prof. Mark
Daskin and Prof. Richard Church, respectively. Additionally, they will be
allowed to take some specialized courses in supply chain management,
transportation and location modelling, stochastic optimization and GIS.
The studentships comprise a living allowance at the standard UK rate
(around £12,600 p.a.) and tuition fees at the UK/EU student rate. In
addition, £7,500 per student will be provided to cover travel expenses
(conference attendance plus training in the US).
Candidates for the positions should have a background in operational
research, computer science, mathematics or some other quantitative
discipline relevant to the project. Experience in optimization methods and
algorithm design, knowledge of CPLEX (or other optimization packages) and
computer programming skills (preferably C++ or Java) will be highly
advantageous.
Applicants should send a CV and the names of two referees by e-mail to
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Closing date: 31 July 2007.
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