Eindhoven, Netherlands May 2018. 

Retail Operations Workshop. 
EURO Conference. 

I did it! I graduated three Ph.D. students at the same time. 

I am so proud of Dr. Ibrahim Capar, Dr. Jianing (Jenny) Zhi, and Dr. Mohammad Firouz for all of their hard work and finally earning their terminal degree. It is also the icing on the cake that they are happily employed!! 

Congratulations you, three! I will feel lonely for a little bit. 

This year's class went to Ireland for 10 days and Germany for another 10 in May 2016.  In Ireland, we studied at UCD again and visited Waterford, Kilkenny, Glendalough, and Cliffs of Moher. 

In Germany, we spent 5 days in Berlin and 5 days in Munich. We had visited Mercedes, BMW, Volkswagen, Meissen and other plants. For the Germany leg, I collaborated with Dr. Ismail Capar. Collectively, we had over 40 students. It was a little bit more work, but it was a lot of fun. We even had a friendly case competition between the two schools. 

If you are interested in the syllabus and the complete program, please contact me. 

In their most recent issue, the IIE magazine is highlighting my paper on emergency response. 

You may find the complete article here on this link. The article reads as: 

In “A Multi-Period Dynamic Location Planning Model for Emergency Response,” doctoral student Jianing (Jenny) Zhi and Professors Burcu B. Keskin and Sharif H. Melouk of the University of Alabama aim to minimize the total operational cost of an EMS organization while maintaining acceptable response times. The researchers collaborated with Chris Byrd, Operations Supervisor at NorthStar Paramedic Services of Tuscaloosa/Birmingham region, while designing a new, four-tier, and dynamically changing response network. The new network considers EMS supply centers, hospitals, potential responder locations, and predicted incident locations.

This work was motivated by the lack of cost perspective in existing EMS research. EMS providers typically use a limited number of ambulances to respond to incoming calls.  They dispatch a set of ambulances to the incident scene depending on incident severity. Uncertain arrival times of emergency calls impact the ability of ambulances to cover the service area, especially with respect to service restrictions imposed. A major concern for EMS providers relates to the failure of responding to incidents within a defined service time requirement, which leads to excessive penalty costs for the providers and leaves the public vulnerable. Of course, sustained low service performance by an EMS provider may result in the loss of a responder service contract.

Please check out mycba.ua.edu/basymposium for the whole line up of speakers. 

2015 Study Abroad Class went to Ireland and Turkey, studying International Supply Chain Analytics. We had a lot of fun with 17 student and two faculty.  Please contact me if you would like to have a copy of the syllabus and the complete schedule. 

 Such a nice feeling to make to 40 under 40 list of Poets & Quants. I guess now everybody knows how old I am. No more hiding :) 

See the full list here and the hardest interview I had to give. 

My paper, co-authored with Ibrahim Capar, Dr. Chuck Sox, and Dr. Nick Freeman  ``An Integrated Load Planning Algorithm for Outbound Logistics at Webb Wheel,’’ scheduled to appear in an upcoming issue of Interfaces,  as a Wagner prize finalist. The UA research magazine will be highlighting the project and our results in its Fall issue. 

 Business Analytics Symposium is a two-day event where presenters from major companies across the U.S. share their experiences in business analytics. We will explore a diverse landscape from statistics, data-mining, and forecasting to predictive modeling and operations research.

It’s also a great networking opportunity for  business, students and academia.

Keynote Speakers:

•  Wayne Winston - Major league sports teams and Fortune 500 companies have called on him to work his analytics magic.
• Paul Adams - VP of Ticket Sales is beginning his 26th season with the Atlanta Braves. 

For a complete list of presenters and to register visit http://mycba.ua.edu/basymposium.

"Culverhouse Professors Denise McManus, Burcu Keskin and Cali Davis are three women with rather diverse backgrounds, but they all have one thing in common— a passion for business analytics." 

A story on Dr. McManus, Dr. Davis, and myself will be published on the fall issue of Culverhouse Execute magazine. Please request your copy from Edith Parten.

The Culverhouse Board of Visitors (BOV) presented Dr. Burcu Keskin and Dr. Kristy Reynolds with BOV Teaching Awards.