Today, September 27th, our Student Chapter enthusiastically organized the first talk of the academic year 2019-2020. Our first speaker was Dr. Andrew C. Trapp who is an Associate Professor of Operations and Industrial Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. His presentation was entitled: “Placement Optimization in Refugee Resettlement”. Through this work, Dr. Trapp is exploring the challenging topic of refugee families’ optimal allocation to matching hosting areas. Recent resettlement trends for refugees were explained to support the vital need for research on the topic. Dr. Trapp also described thoroughly the challenges related to his work as well as how machine learning and integer programming can be combined to address them. Attendees asked many interesting questions during the talk, which led to a fruitful discussion.
Prof. Nagurney introduced our speaker to the audience and welcomed everyone to the event!
Our new President, Mojtaba, referred to our speaker’s academic and research background.
Dr. Trapp showed a demo of the software “Annie MOORE” that was developed as part of the presented project.
The audience participated actively in the event with many interesting questions.
Stay tuned to our Youtube Channel for Dr. Trapp’s interview that followed his presentation!