About
I am an Assistant Professor of Information Systems and Operations Management at the Simon School of Business in the University of Rochester. Most broadly, I am interested in the optimization and analysis of mathematical models that capture real world problems, and in developing decision support tools that leverage analytics to improve operations.
I graduated from MIT where I majored in Operations Research and was advised by professors Retsef Levi and Tom Magnanti. I also hold an MS degree in Industrial Engineering (advised by professors Yale Herer and Hussein Naseraldin) and a BS degree in Information Systems Engineering, both from the Technion – IIT.
Feel free to contact me by email (yaron at simon.rochester.edu) or through LinkedIn.
Research
Testing (stochastic optimization problems with uncertainty reduction decisions, also known as probing, inspection, and triaging)
Published papers:
Scheduling with Testing of Heterogeneous Jobs, with Retsef Levi and Thomas Magnanti, Management Science (to appear) [paper]
A Polynomial-Time Approximation Scheme for Sequential Batch-Testing of Series Systems, with Danny Segev, Operations Research (2022) [paper, code]
Scheduling with Testing, with Retsef Levi and Thomas Magnanti, Management Science (2019) [paper]
Submitted papers:
Pandora's Box Problem with Sequential Inspections, with Jingwei Ji and Ali Aouad, reject & resubmit at Management Science [paper]
Stochastic Selection Problems with Testing, with Chen Attias, Robert Krauthgamer, and Retsef Levi, (reject & resubmit at Management Science) [paper]
Analytics (Explainable and Interpretable ML, ML applications in Operations, Visualization and Decision support systems)
Published papers:
Interpretable Prediction Rules for Congestion Risk in ICUs, with Fernanda Bravo, Cynthia Rudin, and Yuting Yuan, Stochastic Systems (2023)[paper]
Globally-Consistent Rule-Based Summary-Explanations for Machine Learning Models: Application to Credit-Risk Evaluation, with Cynthia Rudin, Journal of Machine Learning Research (2023) [paper, code]
Visualizing the Implicit Model Selection Tradeoff, with Zezhen He, Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research (2023) [paper]
Understanding How Dimension Reduction Tools Work: An Empirical Approach to Deciphering t-SNE, UMAP, TriMAP, and PaCMAP for Data Visualization, with Haiyang Huang, Cynthia Rudin, and Yingfan Wang, Journal of Machine Learning Research (2021) [paper]
A Holistic Approach to Interpretability in Financial Lending: Models, Visualizations, and Summary-Explanations, with Chaofan Chen, Kangcheng Lin, Cynthia Rudin, Sijia Wang, and Tong Wang, Decision Support Systems (2021) [paper]
Mining Optimal Policies: A Pattern Recognition Approach to Model Analysis, with Fernanda Bravo, Informs Journal on Optimization (2020) [paper]
Submitted papers:
Waiting Time Prediction with Invisible Customers, with Yoav Kerner, Ricky Roet-Green, Arik Senderovich, and Yuting Yuan (major revision at MSOM) [paper]
Inventory theory
Optimal Ordering for a Probabilistic One-time Discount, with Yale Herer and Hussein Naseraldin, European Journal of Operational Research (2015) [paper]
PhD students
I have been very fortunate to advise, collaborate with and learn from Simon Business School's truly wonderful and talented PhD students.
Yuting Yuan (graduated in 2022, Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Data Science at the College of William & Mary)
Dawn (Zezhen) He (4th year, PhD student)
Yashi Huang (2nd year, PhD student)
Teaching
Simon School of Business (Instructor)
Predictive Analytics using Python (taught to UG, MS, MBA, and EMBA students)
PhD core optimization course
PhD seminar on OM research landscape
PhD seminar on data analytics in operations management
PhD seminar on interpretable machine learning
PhD seminar on statistical learning
MIT (Teaching Assistant)
Introduction to Operations Management, 15.734 (EMBA)
Introduction to Operations Management, 15.761 (MBA)
Data, Models, and Decisions, 15.060 (MBA)
Optimization Methods in Management Science, 15.053/8 (BS/MS)
Technion – IIT (Teaching Assistant)
Supply Chains Management, 94139 (BS)
Production Systems Engineering, 97120 (MS)
Product Design, 94141 (BS)
Industry experience
Research Intern, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA
Logistics Planner, Manfrotto Bags, Jeruslaem, Israel
Software Engineer, Mind CTI, Yokneam, Israel