Zaira Pagan-Cajigas, Ph.D., recently earned her doctorate in Industrial and Operations Engineering from the University of Michigan, where she was advised by Dr. Seth Guikema. She is a SHPE Scholar, Bill Anderson Fellow, and Rackham Merit Fellow.

Her research focuses on quantifying the impact of natural hazards on the functionality and accessibility of critical services and infrastructure. She developed a building-level framework to assess access to essential services before, during, and after disasters, leveraging publicly available data and local stakeholder knowledge. Her work includes a predictive model for power outages from future tropical cyclones and the development of a synthetic water distribution system, built entirely with publicly available data, to simulate hazard impacts on water availability at the building level.

Her research interests include data analysis, risk analysis, infrastructure modelling, risk and resilience assessments, outage forecasting, simulation, climate change adaptation, and probabilistic risk assessment. 

Position Sought: Seeking a full-time position in academia or industry where I can apply my expertise in risk analysis, data analytics, and operations research to support data-driven decision-making and system optimization.

INFORMS at the University of Michigan 

• Antiracism, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Chair, 2022 - 2024

• Ph.D. and M.S. Mentorship Program, 2021 - 2025 

• Volunteer with a nonprofit organization as part of our Pro-Bono team, 2021 

Society for Risk Analysis (SRA) 

• SRA Journal Reviewer (2023-Present)

• Justice, Equity, and Risk Specialty Group Student Member, 2021 - Present

• Engineering and Infrastructure Specialty Group Secretary and Treasurer, 2023 - 2024