After a national search, Maria Mayorga has been selected as the Director of the Operations Research (OR) Program. She has served as the interim director since 2022 and her appointment is effective August 16, 2023. “Maria has done an excellent job serving as Interim OR Director in 2022-2023 and we appreciate the many new and creative efforts that she has implemented that have already enhanced the program for its students and affiliated faculty,” said Louis Martin-Vega, the College of Engineering Dean. Martin-Vega was one of three deans that approved the appointment, along with John Blondin (College of Sciences) and Frank Buckless (Poole College of Management). “Please join us in congratulating Maria on her permanent appointment to this important leadership role as we look forward to it becoming one of the premier OR programs nationwide,” said Martin-Vega.
The deans would also like to thank the members of the OR Program Director Search Committee, professors Julie Swann, Alina Chertock, Julie Ivy, Len Stefanski, and Sebastian Heese for their willingness to serve in this role and their dedication and commitment to this important endeavor.
About Maria Mayorga
Maria is a University Faculty Scholar and Professor of Personalized Medicine in the Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering. She joined NC State in 2013 as a Chancellor’s Faculty Excellence Program cluster hire in Personalized Medicine. She is also part of the Healthcare Systems Engineering group in the Fitts ISE Department. Her research focuses on analytical modeling of real-world health and service systems including the development of predictive health models and the allocation of resources in emergency and disaster situations. Starting this August, Maria will also hold a joint faculty appointment at the Poole College of Management.
Prior to joining NC State, Maria was on the faculty at the Clemson University Department of Industrial Engineering for seven years. A Fellow of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineering (IISE) and INFORMS, her research has been supported by NIH and NSF, among others, and includes a distinguished NSF CAREER Award for her work to incorporate patient choice into predictive models of health outcomes. Maria obtained her BS in Mechanical Engineering at George Washington University and her MS and Ph.D. degrees in Industrial Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley.