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Emily Tucker @emilyltucker.bsky.social · Jun 25

The aquarium had a whole building showing fish/reptiles/etc. from inland waters (the focus of our paper), and it was fun to see so many fish from our study areas.

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Emily Tucker @emilyltucker.bsky.social · Jun 25

Y’all science is so cool.

(A) I’m at a quantum workshop in Chattanooga, cool in itself, and the reception is at the aquarium.

(B) These two fish are arapaima! They are massive. Gretch (lead of my fish paper) lived on a boat in the Amazon tracking them for nearly a year for her MS thesis.

Emily in front of 2 arapaima (6+ ft long each)

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Emily Tucker @emilyltucker.bsky.social · Jun 20

Side bar for bluesky - I love that we were able to use dancing people as the icons in the final version. This captures some of the underlying joy I have in getting to model :)

Emily Tucker @emilyltucker.bsky.social · Jun 20

The paper's goal is to present a framework to support the process of applied optimization model development.

We've observed that much modeling occurs in an iterative, though ad hoc way. The paper aims to provide a theoretical grounding for this process.

I.e., to support the figure's right panel.

Nominal view of modeling (left panel) vs. contextualized view of modeling (right panel). Contextualized view includes modelers, stakeholders, context, and the model.

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Emily Tucker @emilyltucker.bsky.social · Jun 20

We applied the framework to the problem of locating hand sanitizer stations on a university campus during COVID-19.

In general, we aim to present one option to add a bit of rigor to the process of stakeholder interaction and hope this could support better decisions in practice.

Building schematic. It includes candidate and selected locations for sanitizer stations.

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Emily Tucker @emilyltucker.bsky.social · Jun 20

The framework is embedded in concepts from the field of Cognitive Systems Engineering.

Note how the modelers' perspectives on the problem (mental models) are shaped by interviews and affect the resulting model version.

Diagram of the framework. The steps are: start, interview stakeholders, conduct qualitative analysis, modelers update mental models, gather quantitative data, develop model version, and evaluate model. If the model is deemed sufficient, the process concludes. Else the stakeholders may update mental models, and the process repeats beginning with more interviews.

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Emily Tucker @emilyltucker.bsky.social · Jun 20

The paper's goal is to present a framework to support the process of applied optimization model development.

We've observed that much modeling occurs in an iterative, though ad hoc way. The paper aims to provide a theoretical grounding for this process.

I.e., to support the figure's right panel.

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Emily Tucker @emilyltucker.bsky.social · Jun 20

New paper:

“Developing Optimization Models with Cognitive Systems Engineering”

This is the result of Tyler O’Brien’s MS thesis, co-advised with Sudeep Hedge and in collaboration with Steven Foster.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

#orms

Developing optimization models with cognitive systems engineering

One goal of applied operations research is to improve decisions in practice. For an optimization model to be useful, the underlying problem must be understood, the formulation representative, the d...

www.tandfonline.com

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Emily Tucker @emilyltucker.bsky.social · Jun 20

The paper's goal is to present a framework to support the process of applied optimization model development.

We've observed that much modeling is done in iterative though ad hoc way. The paper aims to provide a theoretical grounding for this process.

i.e., to support the right panel of the figure

Two panel figure. The left panel presents a nominal view of modeling (OR modelers and the model). The right panel presents a contextual view of modeling (with OR modelers, the model, context, and stakeholders).

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Emily Tucker @emilyltucker.bsky.social · Jun 16

Fourth Annual Clemson IE Research Group Olympics!

Congrats to the combined BEST and PHASE lab team for taking home the trophy.

My group got 2nd place!

Representatives from the Tucker Research Group

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Emily Tucker @emilyltucker.bsky.social · May 29

I was at Western Carolina U today chatting about quantum computing. I had a great visit, and I love getting to drive through the mountains.

Emily standing in front of a lake and mountains.

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Emily Tucker @emilyltucker.bsky.social · May 28

Policies:

Can pricing supplements improve access in low and lower-middle income countries? Yes.

Does back-shoring to the US help shortages? Not really.

Do bilateral alliances help shortages? Not really.

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Emily Tucker @emilyltucker.bsky.social · May 28

Findings (cancer drug case study):

Who is affected when a company doesn't plan for geopolitical strain?
- Company profit - minor (1-3% decrease)
- Patients - major (26-29% increase in shortages).

There are differences in shortages between countries of different income levels due to pricing

Map of worldwide expected shortages in status quo

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Emily Tucker @emilyltucker.bsky.social · May 28

It's about global pharma supply chains, geopolitical strain, and drug shortages:

- We present a new model to locate facilities in spite of export ban risks.

- We evaluate shortages worldwide: under different levels of strain and different mitigation policies.

Model structure: first-stage variables (location decisions); uncertainty realization (capacity, demand, and geopolitical strain); second-stage decision variables (raw materials, distribution, shortage)

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Emily Tucker @emilyltucker.bsky.social · May 28

New paper in EJOR led by Martha Sabogal De La Pava:

"Effects of geopolitical strain on global pharmaceutical supply chain design and drug shortages"

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Effects of geopolitical strain on global pharmaceutical supply chain design and drug shortages

Emerging geopolitical risks have begun to threaten global supply chains, including those that produce life-saving drugs. Export bans may prevent a com…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Emily Tucker @emilyltucker.bsky.social · May 27

Done - apologies I missed this!

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Emily Tucker @emilyltucker.bsky.social · May 6

Yes 😂

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Reposted by Emily Tucker

Tien "Waffle Party at the Waffle House" Chih @tienchihmath.bsky.social · May 6

Motivating Research.

Squidward sleeping meme. Top text: Tenure, romotion. Bottom text: Chocolate Windmill.

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Emily Tucker @emilyltucker.bsky.social · May 6

This looks cool!

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Emily Tucker @emilyltucker.bsky.social · May 6

I love older papers.

Lenstra and Kan, 1979 "Computational Complexity of Discrete Optimization Problems" Annals of Discrete Mathematics

#orms

"we shall be happy to award a chocolate windmill to the first person..."

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Emily Tucker @emilyltucker.bsky.social · Apr 30

Wow.

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Emily Tucker @emilyltucker.bsky.social · Mar 20

Clemson 😅😅😅

Ended up losing by two.

It’s March!!

Nicole Auerbach @nauerbach.com · Mar 20

Clemson has 13 total points at halftime. Tigers have turned the ball over 10 times and are 1-of-15 from three.

Reposted by Emily Tucker

χle Ormsby @motivickyle.bsky.social · Mar 11

Ah, yes, the universal symbol of applied mathematics: the yellow cow with orange stripes.

Allie Alvis 🌷 @book-historia.bsky.social · Mar 11

Here is the Application Cow for all your mathematical needs

An orange and yellow striped cow in an 1842 math manuscript

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Emily Tucker @emilyltucker.bsky.social · Mar 3

Do you talk about #orms with the media, policymakers, public educators, or other stakeholders?

Consider applying for the Public Engagement Award from INFORMS AGC.

Deadline May 1, 2025.

www.informs.org/Recognizing-...

Advocacy Governance Committee Public Engagement Award

Purpose of the AwardThe Advocacy Governance Committee (AGC) award for Public Engagement recognizes excellence of an INFORMS member who has actively engaged with the public to advance the profession in...

www.informs.org

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Emily Tucker @emilyltucker.bsky.social · Feb 28

This article gives some more information on the REU cancellations this summer.

It sounds like the current cancellations are coming from programs that were expecting to be renewed but weren't this cycle. More might be coming with the general budget volatility.

Tbd.

www.science.org/content/arti...

NSF downsizes summer research program for undergraduates

Many participants are from groups underrepresented in science

www.science.org

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Emily Tucker @emilyltucker.bsky.social · Feb 25

For transparency:

At this point, Clemson IE's REU is still on for this summer. We haven't heard anything to the contrary, thankfully. I'll keep y'all posted if that changes.

cecas.clemson.edu/hcore/

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