Diana G. Ramirez-Rios, Ph.D.
I am an assistant professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo, with a Ph.D. in Transportation Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, with a B.S.-M.S. in Industrial Engineering. I am passionate about policy-driven, empirical, and multidisciplinary research. My work focuses on sustainable urban freight transportation, supply chain optimization, and humanitarian/disaster response logistics. Theoretical work includes urban freight demand modeling, facility location and post-disaster distribution modeling, commercial vehicle parking simulation models, and game-theoretic models for supply chain cooperation. Practice and policy-driven research include quantifying and allocating freight externalities and implementing policy initiatives for sustainable urban freight systems. My empirical research includes the economic valuation for the lack of relief supplies in post-disaster response, freight trip generation and service trip generation models, and parking duration. I have strong theoretical foundations in operations research, statistical analyses, and economics.
Recent Work
Supply Chain Optimization
Game-theoretic models for horizontal/vertical supply chain collaboration
Mathematical models for 2 and 3-echelon supply chains
Disaster Response Logistics
Facility location-allocation models for post-disaster distribution of critical relief
Continuous Approximation of Deprivation Costs
Economic valuation of water deprivation in post-disaster environments
Transporation barriers to health care in post-disaster environments
Urban Freight Transportation
Freight demand modeling: Freight generation, freight trip generation, service trip generation
Commercial vehicle parking in urban areas
Freight tour syntesis models
Freight-efficient initiatives and policies
Recent Highlights
December 2021: Received a grant from the Natural Hazards Center to study the "Transportation Barriers to Health Care Access in Post-Disaster Environments of Socially Vulnerable Communities in Puerto Rico."
May 2021: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute grants the Karen and Lester Gerhardt Prize in Science and Engineering (1982)
May 2021: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute grants the Thomas Archibald Price (1964) – Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
December 2020: Graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
October 2020: Recieves the Helene M. Overly/ Leonard Braun Graduate Scholarship from WTS International
October 2020: Recieves the Bayer Scholarship from INFORMS Analytics Society
October 2020: Recieves a registration scholarship from the INFORMS Minority Issues Forum to attend the Doctoral Student Colloquia and Annual Meeting
November 2019: Invited by the U.S. Department of Transportation to speak at the Talking Freight Webinar: International Urban Freight (I-NUF) Conference Presentations, Part 1 – Curbside Delivery Challenges and Opportunities to present “On-Street Parking Requirements for Freight and Service Activity.”
October 2019: Attends the MIT CEE Rising Stars Workshop