Haden Boone, Beerman Fellow
The Ronald J. and Carol T. Beerman Presidential Fellowship enables and enhances the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering’s (ISyE’s) ability to attract and retain graduate students to pursue their degrees and facilitate their work at the Stewart School.

Advisor: Assistant Professor Mathieu Dahan
Focus area: Operations Research

Haden Boone is researching optimization techniques to solve a network inspection problem where a defender places a number of sensors according to a probability distribution to detect attacks on targets of varying criticality from a strategic opponent. The assumption is that detection is imperfect, and that detectors have a probability of failure associated with both the location of the sensor and the monitored target. To put it into perspective, this research could be used to devise a police patrol routing system with limited resources that minimizes the number of undetected crimes or attacks on critical targets such as banks, schools, or other high value/populated areas.

“The furthering of math and statistics, and in particular their practical application to unintuitive areas, has always been an aspiration of mine. From the moment I took my first ISyE class I fell in love with the major, and after realizing that I had the potential and the opportunity to make an impact in the field, the decision to stay at Georgia Tech — the most prestigious institution in optimization — was a no-brainer,” said Boone. “Perhaps more impactful, however, is my desire to teach at the collegiate level. After spending four years surrounded by some of the best and brightest engineers, how could I not want to stick around if it meant I had the chance to shape the most brilliant minds in the industry?  

“Receiving the inaugural Beerman Fellowship is a huge honor, and it serves to validate my hard work over the past four years at Georgia Tech. This fellowship will give me the opportunity to bring my passions and ambitions in the ISyE field to reality, and I hope to give back to the industry, the Institute, and the ISyE program what it has given to me tenfold.”

Jorge Huertas, Ryder Fellow
The Ryder Fellowship supports graduate students working on innovative ISyE efforts to analyze and address problems and challenges that affect the safety of autonomous vehicles.

Advisor: A. Russell Chandler III Chair and Professor Pascal Van Hentenryck
Focus area: Operations Research

Jorge Huertas is analyzing how to optimize middle-mile freight transportation with autonomous vehicles and coordinate it with first- and last-mile logistics. To accomplish this, potential transportation costs are reduced by using real-operations data as input to an optimization model that minimizes total empty driving miles. Research currently underway focuses on decomposing this optimization model into a column-generation algorithm that obtains high-quality solutions efficiently, and the ability to scale them nationwide.

Hanyu Zhang, Seth Bonder Fellow
The Bonder Fellowship supports graduate and postdoctoral students working with Dr. Pascal Van Hentenryck’s outreach programs in ISyE, including the Seth Bonder Camp in Computational and Data Science for Engineering and associated activities.

Advisor: A. Russell Chandler III Chair and Professor Pascal Van Hentenryck
Focus area: Machine Learning

Hanyu Zhang is interested in modeling and forecasting large dynamic systems, particularly transportation systems and electrical grids. Her research includes ridership prediction and traffic flow prediction, capturing the intrinsic spatiotemporal behavior of transportation systems. She is currently working on forecasting renewable energy production for electrical grids.