*********************************
There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
*********************************
The goal of this seminar is to familiarize the audience with activities involving operations research at IBM Research. I will provide an overview of areas of research, including optimization, applied mathematics, and stochastic modeling. I will also describe some of the projects in which we are involved and discuss the difficulties that are faced when trying to use OR in practice.
Biography:
Samer Takriti manages the Stochastic Analysis group in the Mathematical Sciences Department of IBM Research. Before joining IBM in 1996, Dr. Takriti worked on developing stochastic models for the unit commitment problem -- a large-scale mixed-integer program that arises when scheduling the generating units of an electric utility. He continued working on this subject while at IBM Research. Dr. Takriti left IBM in 1999 to become Director of Research at Enron Corporation in Houston. During his stay at Enron, he was responsible for providing mathematical and technical support for Enron Broadband Services. He also worked on a variety of problems related to electric power and water resources. Samer returned to IBM in 2000 where he continued working on issues related to deregulated power markets, such as contract evaluation and resource scheduling. He manages a group investigating the use of statistical methods, queueing theory, and stochastic optimization in the areas of pricing, workforce scheduling, manufacturing, and customer targeting. Dr. Takriti holds a Ph.D. degree in Industrial and Operations Engineering from the University of Michigan.
