STOR-i Alumni
After successfully completing their studies at STOR-i, these alumni are now working in a diverse range of areas across academic and industry.
National Associates Network
STOR-i have created a national associates scheme to provide a network of cooperation amongst PhD students working in Statistics and Operational Research.
National Associates accordion accordion
Anil Arpaci, Queen Mary University of London
I have BSc and MSc degrees in Computer Engineering from Middle East Technical University (Turkey). During my master's, I worked for a private company, where I gained significant experience by applying optimisation algorithms for the real-world problems of the industry. Currently, I am a second-year PhD student at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). My research project is network design optimisation, focusing on implementing a heuristic search engine to optimise fibre network designs. This project is in collaboration with BT. My supervisor is Jun Chen (QMUL) and my co-supervisors are John Drake (Leicester University/BT) and Tim Glover (BT).
Emma Aspland, Cardiff University
I studied Mathematics at the University of the West of England at the undergraduate level, followed by an MSc in Mathematics and Computing for Finance at Swansea University, receiving the highest level award at both. I am currently a PhD student at Cardiff University focussing on Operational Research in Healthcare. My project is in collaboration with Velindre Cancer Centre and has the overall goal of improving patient care and outcomes by reducing the time to diagnosis and treatment times for those with cancer. The research will focus on clinical pathways, from discovering and investigating to improving the pathway of a particular cancer site, using techniques such as simulation and modelling.
Thomas Cheale, University of Kent
I am a PhD student based at the University of Kent (UK) supervised by Professor Rachel McCrea and Dr Eduard Campillo-Funollet from Lancaster University and Dr David Roberts a conservation expert from the University of Kent. I earned an integrated master’s degree in 2021 in Mathematics and Statistics from the University of Kent for which I was awarded the 2021 Institute of Mathematics Prize. I am interested in randomized response-sensitive survey models which can be used to obtain estimates associated with sensitive, and perhaps illegal behaviours. I am currently working on creating a general framework which categorizes all possible randomized response survey designs and can be used to create novel surveys. Other interests include the use of machine learning text classification and prediction algorithms to help understand human behaviour behind the wildlife trade. In my free time, I enjoy going on long hikes, cross-country running, playing board and tabletop role-playing games, and debating politics.
Michael Flynn, University of Southampton
I studied Mechanical Engineering, (minor in Computer Science) at Cornell University and completed my MBA in Finance at Wharton. I then embarked on an industry career with a mixture of operational, strategic, and analytic roles. Recently I have focused on using analytic tools to support making strategic and operational decisions in the supply chain industry. A particular challenge facing logistics service providers in the UK chilled food industry is improving the integration of collection and delivery fleets through more effective use of consolidation, cross-docking and asset sharing. Having sought to procure commercial vehicle planning systems to support this decision problem, it became clear this variation of the VRP is not well-researched. This gap motivated me to commence a PhD programme in Operations Research at the University of Southampton with a research focus on developing effective solutions to pick-up and delivery vehicle routing problems admitting multiple cross-docks order splitting, and consolidation.
Johannes Hansen, University of Edinburgh
I am currently a first-year PhD student at the University of Edinburgh, having graduated with a BSc in Physics from Jacobs University Bremen and an MPhil in Scientific Computing from the University of Cambridge. My research is focused on the automatic detection of deforestation and forest degradation events from a time series of geospatial (satellite) data. Challenges include a large amount of data, the fusion of different data variables (radar, lidar, optical, field measurements) each available at different spatial and temporal resolutions, the lack of reference data, and an accurate error assessment.
Alexander Heib, University of Southampton
After gaining a bachelor’s degree in physics with theoretical physics from Imperial College London, I completed an MSc in operational research at the University of Southampton.
I am currently a PhD student in operational research at the University of Southampton. My research is in collaboration with a local NHS Trust, where I am developing a simulation model of their emergency department. The aim is to demonstrate how simulation models can help in daily operational decision-making by taking real-time data from the department and using it to initialise the model. My academic supervisors are Professor Christine Currie, Dr Stephan Onggo and Dr Honora Smith.
Matthew Howells, Cardiff University
I previously graduated with an MMORS in Mathematics, Operational Research and Statistics from Cardiff University. Currently, I am a PhD Student in Operational Research focussing on healthcare modelling, also at Cardiff University. My project is in collaboration with Cardiff and Vale University Health Board (CVUHB), to model the reconfiguration of acute and community health services for CVUHB using operational research modelling techniques, to improve the quality and accessibility of services. My focus is currently on improving the orthopaedic pathway using methods such as simulation and mathematical programming.
Chul Jang, City University of London
As a PhD candidate in actuarial science at Cass Business School, I am studying multi-stage stochastic programming applications on optimal investment, consumption, and insurance choices. The insurance products include term life, variable annuities, deferred annuities, and equity release, but not limited to them. My research is funded by the Korea Life Insurance Association. I have a BSc in Industrial Engineering from Hanyang University and an MBA. at KAIST, and an MSc in Actuarial Science at Cass Business School. In between the academic degrees, I worked as a pricing actuary and researcher for a life insurance company, LINA - a Korean branch of CIGNA, a government-owned research centre, KIHASA, and a private research centre, Mirae Retirement Research Centre.
Thomas Lugrin, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
I studied Mathematics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) where I completed my MSc in Mathematical Engineering.
My current research focuses on modelling dependence of rare events, and typical applications involve environmental and financial data. I am supervised by both Professor A. C. Davison at EPFL and Professor J. A. Tawn at Lancaster University.
David Melder, University of Leicester
I received my undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Mathematics for Finance and Management (BSc) and Logistics and Supply Chain Management (MSc) from the University of Portsmouth. I have experience working for Portsmouth University as a research associate on WASP, an Innovate UK project investigating vehicle routing and scheduling in autonomous vessels.
Currently, I am studying for a PhD in Computer Science at the University of Leicester contributing to OR-MASTER. The primary focus of the project involves the construction and investigation of mathematical models and algorithms for solving complex, large-scale airport resource allocation problems.
Steven Soutar, University of Edinburgh
I graduated with an MMath in Mathematics from the University of St Andrews. Four years later I returned to St Andrews to complete an MSc in applied statistics and data mining. My research interests include Bayesian inference, medical statistics, and computational statistics. My research project concerns developing statistical methods for biomarker data analysis, to aid in early detection of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) a form of liver cancer. The methods employed in this project are mostly Bayesian in nature.
Marta Staff, University of Exeter
I am currently a first-year PhD student in Operational Research in Healthcare at the Business School, University of Exeter, where I previously completed MBA and MRes in Management Programmes. My project is in collaboration with the Human Milk Foundation which is a social enterprise supporting the provision of screened donor human milk to infants in hospitals and in the community. My research aims to gain an understanding of milk banking in the UK regarding operational efficiency and robustness.
My supervisors: are Professor Nav Mustafee and Professor Gianluca Veronesi (University of Bristol).
Eunice Twumwaa Adwubi, University of Strathclyde
I studied social work with sociology at the undergraduate level at the University of Ghana. I continued with a master's in Public Health - Health Policy, Planning and Management at the same university. After working as a research assistant in Ghana’s leading biomedical research institute for two years, I started a PhD in Decision Science at the Management Science Department, University of Strathclyde. I am combining an Agent-based model with economic evaluation methodologies to investigate the health and economic benefits of non-clinical interventions that enhance early detection, improve treatment access, and reduce the catastrophic treatment cost for individuals, health systems, and government. My research has implications for sustainable development goals 3: Universal health coverage and NCDs prevention and control.
Emily Williams, Cardiff University
I am currently a PhD student in Operational Research in Healthcare at Cardiff University, after graduating with a BSc in Mathematics, also at Cardiff University. My PhD project is in collaboration with the Welsh Blood Service to support the redesign of the blood supply chain system. My research aims to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the blood collection process, minimising both waiting times for donors, and wastage in the system. My project focuses on queueing theory, staff scheduling and clinic location planning, using methods such as simulation and mathematical programming.