Advances in Managing Humanitarian Operations

This volume provides a survey of current research problems and results in humanitarian operations research. Additionally, it discusses existing applications of humanitarian operations research, and considers new research efforts that clearly extend existing research and applications. The book is divided into three sections that provide an overview of the subject, a look at the theory, and an examination of applications.

The overview section presents chapters on modeling approaches and metrics to evaluate nonprofit operations; chief findings of fieldwork research in disaster response logistics; the use of cash as a form of relief; and measuring markets that supply cash-based humanitarian interventions.

The theory section includes chapters that examine the partner proliferation problem in disaster response networks; a case study of humanitarian logistics that examines how humanitarian culture informs change adoption; and a look at the current state of the art for information visibility in humanitarian operations.

Finally, the application section focuses on blood products, vaccines, and food assistance, with individual chapters on efficient inventorying and distribution of blood products during disasters; a detailed look at modeling in the context of the vaccine supply chain; a framework for achieving equity, effectiveness, and efficiency in food bank operations; and a spatio-temporal vulnerabili

ty assessment of the resilience of a population affected by sudden lack of food.

Nezih Altay is an Associate Professor at the Driehaus College of Business of DePaul University. He earned his PhD in Operations Management from Texas A&M University. Dr. Altay is an experienced and highly qualified teacher-scholar. His research specializes in after-sale service operations, disruption management and humanitarian supply chains. He has published his research in leading academic journals and presented in national and international arenas. He co-edited a book titled Service Parts Management: Demand Forecasting and Inventory Control that was published also with Springer. He is the co-Editor-in-chief for the Journal of Humanitarian Logistics & Supply Chain Management, and directs the Master program in Supply Chain Management at DePaul University.

Mark Haselkorn is a Professor of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington. He is Director of the new university Center on Collaborative Systems for Security, Safety & Regional Resilience (CoSSaR) and currently leads the Maritime Operations Information Sharing (MOISA) project, a research partnership sponsored by three Federal Agencies -- DHS Interagency Operations Center (IOC), Program Manager for the Information Sharing Environment (PM-ISE), and National Maritime Intelligence-Integration Office (NMIO) – with the goal of better understanding and enhancing the information sharing requirements for regional mariti

me safety and security. He also is a lead investigator on an AHRQ R01 to develop work and information centered methods for achieving evidence-based health information technology. Dr. Haselkorn also conducts research for the Red Cross Global Disaster Preparedness Center and has completed an NSF initiative to define the emerging frontier of "Humanitarian Service Science & Engineering." He has worked with the military on a number of projects, including the integration of DOD and VA electronic medical records and the Air Force’s strategic management of ICT under the threat of Y2K (a study published by the National Research Council). Dr. Haselkorn has conducted foundational research in the area of intelligent transportation systems, including development of the first Web-based real-time traveler information system (Traffic Reporter, 1990). He is Past President of the IEEE Professional Communication Society, has served on ISO/IEC-JTC1, is a member of the IEEE Medical Technology Policy Committee, and was a founding Board Member of the International Community on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (ISCRAM).

Christopher W. Zobel is the R.B. Pamplin Professor of Business Information Technology at the Pamplin College of Business, Virginia Tech University. He earned a Ph.D. in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia, and an M.S. in Mathematics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His primary re

search interests include disaster operations management and humanitarian supply chains, and he has published his work in journals such asDecision Sciences, Decision Support Systems, and the Journal of Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management, among others. Dr. Zobel is one of the Co-Directors of Virginia Tech's Interdisciplinary Graduate Education Program in Disaster Resilience, and he was a 2015 Fulbright Scholar to Germany. He is on the Board of Directors of the International Association for the Study of Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (ISCRAM) and an active member of the Decision Sciences Institute (DSI) and the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS).