Kent Business School at the University of Kent invites applications for two 36-month PhD studentships in the area of Operational Research and Supply Chain Reliability starting September 1, 2007.

The two studentships, funded by EPSRC (Grant EP/E048552/1), will involve working on a project entitled “Design and protection strategies for critical infrastructure systems and supply chains”, under the supervision of Dr. Maria Paola Scaparra.

The objective of the research is to develop novel optimization models and advanced solution techniques for enhancing the reliability and security of supply chains and critical infrastructure systems. This includes the development of models for identifying supply chain configurations which are inherently robust to external disruptions, as well as models for determining the optimal allocation of protective resources among the components of infrastructure systems that are already in place. The models should include advanced features to reflect the complexity of today’s logistic systems, such as stochastic elements, multiple objectives and specialized structural constraints. Exact, heuristic and hybrid methods will be investigated to solve the new complex models.

Applicants will join the Management Science Group at the University of Kent (see http://www.kent.ac.uk/kbs/standard.php?page_id=113 for more information). They will also be expected to spend one term in their second year at one or more of the US academic institutions that form the project partnership. These include Lehigh University, Northwestern University, and the University of California at Santa Barbara. During these visits, students will be supervised by distinguished experts in the field of optimization and supply chains, namely Prof. Larry Snyder, Prof. Mark Daskin and Prof. Richard Church, respectively. Additionally, they will be allowed to take some specialized courses in supply chain management, transportation and location modelling, stochastic optimization and GIS.

The studentships comprise a living allowance at the standard UK rate (around GBP 12,600 p.a.) and tuition fees at the UK/EU student rate. In addition, GBP 7,500 per student will be provided to cover travel expenses (conference attendance plus training in the US).

Candidates for the positions should have a background in operational research, computer science, mathematics or some other quantitative discipline relevant to the project. Experience in optimization methods and algorithm design, knowledge of CPLEX (or other optimization packages) and computer programming skills (preferably C++ or Java) will be highly advantageous.

Application
Applications should send a CV and the names of two referees to Dr. Paola Scaparra at M.P.Scaparra@kent.ac.uk

Closing date: 31 July 2007