Karen Renee Smilowitz is an American transportation scientist and

operations research Operations research ( en-GB, operational research) (U.S. Air Force Specialty Code: Operations Analysis), often shortened to the initialism OR, is a discipline that deals with the development and application of analytical methods to improve deci ...

er whose research concerns humanitarian

logistics Logistics is generally the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation. In a general business sense, logistics manages the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of consumption to meet the requirements of ...

, including

vehicle routing The vehicle routing problem (VRP) is a combinatorial optimization and integer programming problem which asks "What is the optimal set of routes for a fleet of vehicles to traverse in order to deliver to a given set of customers?" It generalises t ...

for

disaster relief Emergency management or disaster management is the managerial function charged with creating the framework within which communities reduce vulnerability to hazards and cope with disasters. Emergency management, despite its name, does not actuall ...

efforts, as well as safety and emergency preparedness for large public events such as

marathon The marathon is a long-distance foot race with a distance of , usually run as a road race, but the distance can be covered on trail routes. The marathon can be completed by running or with a run/walk strategy. There are also wheelchair div ...

s. She is James N. and Margie M. Krebs Professor in Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences at

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

, and editor-in-chief of the journal ''

Transportation Science ''Transportation Science'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). The studies published in the journal apply operations research techniques to probl ...

''.

Education and career

Smilowitz majored in

civil engineering Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads, bridges, canals, dams, airports, sewage ...

and operations research at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

, graduating in 1995. She went to the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

for graduate study in civil and environmental engineering, specializing in transportation, earning a master's degree in 1998 and completing her Ph.D. in 2001. Her dissertation, ''Design and operation of multimode, multi-service logistics systems'', was supervised by Carlos F. Daganzo. She has been a faculty member in industrial engineering and management sciences at Northwestern University since 2001. She became a full professor in 2015, was named Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence in 2015 and Krebs Professor in 2018, and added an affiliation with the

Kellogg School of Management The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University (also known as Kellogg) is the business school of Northwestern University, a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1908, Kellogg is one of the oldest and most p ...

in 2019. As well as serving as editor-in-chief of ''

'', she has been president of the INFORMS Transportation Science & Logistics Society, for a three-year term from 2015 to 2018.

Recognition

Smilowitz was the 2016 winner of the WORMS Award for the Advancement of Women in OR/MS of the

Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) is an international society for practitioners in the fields of operations research (O.R.), management science, and analytics. It was established in 1995 with the merger of ...

(INFORMS). In 2022 she was named a Fellow of INFORMS, "for outstanding research in transportation, logistics and nonprofit operations, significant contributions to the practice of OR for social good and advancing equity and diversity".

References

External links

Home page
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Smilowitz, Karen Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American civil engineers American women engineers Operations researchers Princeton University alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni Northwestern University faculty Fellows of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences