Milad Armaghan 

I am an Assistant Professor in the DISC department of the  Bauer School of Business at University of Houston.  I have received my Ph.D. in Operations Management from the Naveen Jindal School of Management, The University of Texas at Dallas, where I was advised by Prof. Metin Cakanyildirim and Prof. Andrew Frazelle.  I also have a master of science degree in Supply Chain Management from the same school. After finishing my master's, I worked as a quality engineer for two years at the manufacturing facility of ATCO Products Inc., a major manufacturer of AC components for the leading truck and heavy-weight vehicle manufacturers such as Ford, Chrysler, Dynastar, etc. 

Research

My research interest revolves around analytical and empirical revenue management, specifically, in emerging and understudied businesses. I have been particularly interested  in developing empirical and analytical methodologies to illuminate customer decision making and addressing the complex pricing and inventory management challenges in the understudied Rent-to-Own (RTO) industry. In addition, I have examined a fundamental newsvendor problem from a distributionally robust perspective, whose place is currently vacant in the robust operations literature that ha been gaining increasing attention over the recent years. In addition, I have been working on developing a stylized model to analyze the emerging business mode of progressive subscription, incorporating both revenue management and sustainability considerations.  My research methodologies include structural estimation, (robust) optimization, applied probability, dynamic programming, stylized modeling, and econometrics.

Research Papers

• M. Armaghan, M. Çakanyıldırım, A. Frazelle, Divakar Rajamani “Buyout Price Optimization for the Rent-to-Own Business,” under second round of revision after major (between major and minor according to the Associate Editor) revision at Manufacturing and Service Operations Management, 2025

• M. Armaghan, M. Çakanyıldırım, A. Frazelle, Daniel Glasky, Divakar Rajamani “Rent, Retrieve, Repeat until Sold: Demand Process Specification and Modular Estimation Framework for the Rent-to-Own Business,” forthcoming at Journal of Operations Management, 2025

• M. Armaghan, E. Han, S. Çetinkaya, “Newsvendor Competition under Demand Ambiguity: A Distributionally Robust Approach,” under revision after Reject and Resubmit at Operations Research, 2025.

• M. Armaghan, M. Çakanyıldırım, A. Frazelle, “A Comparative Study of the Economics and Sustainability of the Progressive Subscription Business Model,” working paper