On Friday, February 28, 2025, AMATH have an alum, Professor Daniel Kosmas, University of Massachusetts Lowell, visiting Illinois Tech. Professor Kosmas graduated from Illinois Tech with a BS in Applied Math in 2017. He currently is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering at the U Mass Lowell. He received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2022, where his research was supported by a National Institute of Justice Graduate Research Fellowship. His research interests include developing operations research models to address societal problems, such as disrupting human trafficking networks and improving the resiliency of pharmaceutical supply chains.
12–12:50 p.m., RE 106: Professor Kosmas will be available to meet with students and share his thoughts on his time in Illinois, his career journey after Illinois Tech, and any advice and insights he might have for our current students. This event, with some food and refreshments, is hosted by the SIAM chapter at Illinois Tech.
12:50–1:45pm, RE 106: Professor Kosmas will give a talk, titled “Network Disruption Models for Public Good,” on the following topic of general societal interest under the Discrete Applied Math seminar at IIT. He will be available for a Q-and-A after the talk also.
Abstract
Network disruption models are a class of bilevel optimization models that seek to find the optimal operations of a network in the face of disruptions. They can be used to model a variety of important scenarios, from improving the resiliency of a supply chain to analyzing the vulnerabilities of an illicit network. However, they are often challenging to solve, requiring the development of advanced algorithms. In this talk, we present two novel network disruption models. The first model seeks to improve the resiliency of a distribution network by optimally pre-allocating safety stock while accounting for disruptions. We numerically demonstrate how different measures of supply chain resiliency – such as safety stock allocation, arc density, and production capacity – impact the total costs of operating the distribution network and the network service level. The second model seeks to optimally disrupt an illicit trafficking network while accounting for how the operations of the trafficking network will restructure to mitigate the disruptions. We discuss how, with the perspectives of subject matter experts, we model domestic sex trafficking within the context of this network disruption model. We numerically show how failing to account for restructurings in domestic sex trafficking operations results in policy recommendations that fail to meaningfully disrupt their operations.
Contact Professor Hemanshu Kaul (kaul@iit.edu) for any questions.