Maria Mayorga

Goodnight Distinguished Chair in Operations Research

 
Maria Mayorga joined North Carolina State University in August 2013 as a Chancellor’s Faculty Excellence Program cluster hire in Personalized Medicine. She is a professor in the Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, part of the Healthcare Systems Engineering group and serves as the Goodnight Distinguished Chair of the Graduate Program in Operations Research. Her goal is to address fundamental research barriers in moving from estimates of efficacy to estimates of the effectiveness of interventions or policies by explicitly considering individual patient preferences when the underlying patient population is heterogeneous. She is also interested in optimally allocating resources in Emergency Medical Service systems. To achieve these goals Mayorga will create analytical models of health systems that incorporate patient-level data. She uses techniques such as simulation, dynamic programming, applied probability, queuing theory and mathematical programming. She employs multiple sources of secondary data and a mixed methods approach to enable predictions of health outcomes at levels for which it is difficult to conduct studies in practice. This research is inherently interdisciplinary and is thus facilitated via collaborations with health services researchers such as epidemiologists, economists, and medical doctors.

Prior to joining the NC State faculty, she was on the faculty at Clemson University, Department of Industrial Engineering for seven years. She has authored over 40 publications in archival journals and refereed proceedings. Her research has been supported by NIH and NSF, among others. She received the distinguished National Science Foundation CAREER Award for her work to incorporate patient choice into predictive models of health outcomes.

Research Interests

Maria Mayorga’s research interests include Modeling Marketing and Operations Interface, Analysis of Supply Chain Models, Application of Stochastic Optimization in Production and Service Systems, Analysis of Queuing Systems.

Education

DegreeProgramSchoolYear
Ph.D.Doctorate on Philosophy in Industrial EngineeringUniversity of California at Berkeley2006
MSMaster of ScienceUniversity of California at Berkeley2002
BSBachelor of ScienceGeorge Washington University2000

Honors and Awards

  • 2019 | Women & Minority Engineering Most Supportive Faculty Award, Women & Minority Engineering Program at NC State
  • 2019 | C.A. Anderson Outstanding Faculty Award, NC State ISE Department
  • 2019 | 2018-2019 University Faculty Scholar
  • 2017 | Honored as Professor of Personalized Medicine with NC State

 

Discover more about Maria Mayorga

 

Publications

Estimating the long-term health impact and program cost-effectiveness of providing direct screening services to low-income, medically underserved patients through the Colorectal Cancer Control Program (CRCCP)
Meghan C. O'Leary, Koutouan, P. R., Mayorga, M. E., Sharma, K. P., Degroff, A., Richardson, L. C., & Lich, K. H. (2025, May 29), CANCER CAUSES & CONTROL, Vol. 5. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-025-01994-5
Optimizing Masks and Random Screening Test Usage within K-12 Schools
Zhang, Y., Mayorga, M. E., Ivy, J. S., & Swann, J. L. (2025), MDM POLICY & PRACTICE, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/23814683241312225
COVSIM: A stochastic agent-based COVID-19 SIMulation model for North Carolina
Rosenstrom, E. T., Ivy, J. S., Mayorga, M. E., & Swann, J. L. (2024), EPIDEMICS, 46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epidem.2024.100752
INCORPORATING FACE MASK USAGE IN AGENT-BASED MODELS USING PERSONAL BELIEFS AND PERCEPTIONS: AN APPLICATION OF THE HEALTH BELIEF MODEL
Rodriguez-Cartes, S. A., Mayorga, M. E., Ozaltin, O. Y., & Swann, J. L. (2024), 2024 WINTER SIMULATION CONFERENCE, WSC, pp. 1071–1082. https://doi.org/10.1109/WSC63780.2024.10838827
METAMODEL OF A SIMULATION MODEL OF COLORECTAL CANCER WITH DIVERSE CLINIC POPULATIONS AND INTERVENTION SCENARIOS
Stanfield, A., Mayorga, M. E., Meghan C. O'Leary, & Lich, K. H. (2024), 2024 WINTER SIMULATION CONFERENCE, WSC, pp. 1118–1129. https://doi.org/10.1109/WSC63780.2024.10838803
Potential impact of annual vaccination with reformulated COVID-19 vaccines: Lessons from the US COVID-19 scenario modeling hub
Jung, S.-mok, Loo, S. L., Howerton, E., Contamin, L., Smith, C. P., Carcelen, E. C., … Lessler, J. (2024), PLOS MEDICINE, 21(4). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1004387
Agent-Based Simulation of Spontaneous Volunteer Convergence to Improve Disaster Planning
Paret, K., Rodriguez, S. A., Mayorga, M. E., Velotti, L., & Lodree, E. J. (2023), NATURAL HAZARDS REVIEW, 24(2). https://doi.org/10.1061/NHREFO.NHENG-1659
Detecting Human Trafficking: Automated Classification of Online Customer Reviews of Massage Businesses
Li, R., Tobey, M., Mayorga, M. E., Caltagirone, S., & Ozaltin, O. Y. (2023, February 22), M&SOM-MANUFACTURING & SERVICE OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT, Vol. 2. https://doi.org/10.1287/msom.2023.1196
Engaging stakeholders in the use of an interactive simulation tool to support decision-making about the implementation of colorectal cancer screening interventions
Meghan. C. C. O'Leary, Lich, K. H., Mayorga, M. E. E., Hicklin, K., Davis, M. M. M., Brenner, A. T. T., … Wheeler, S. B. B. (2023, May 6), CANCER CAUSES & CONTROL, Vol. 5. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-023-01692-0
Evaluation of the US COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub for informing pandemic response under uncertainty
Howerton, E., Contamin, L., Mullany, L. C., Qin, M., Reich, N. G., Bents, S., … Lessler, J. (2023), NATURE COMMUNICATIONS, 14(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-42680-x

View all publications via NC State Libraries

Maria Mayorga