CBE Energy Seminar: Samitha Samaranayake (Cornell CEE)

Description

Bio:
Samitha Samaranayake is an associate professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and a graduate field faculty in the School of Operations Research and Information Engineering, the Center for Applied Math and the Systems Engineering Program at Cornell.

His primary research interest is in mathematical modeling and algorithm design for large-scale transportation network problems, and my current focus is on problems at the intersection of public transit and ride-sharing. In particular, Samaranayake is interested in hybrid transit systems---services that are designed from the ground-up to fully integrate traditional fixed-line public transit and agile, demand-responsive modes.

Samaranayake looks at these problems through the lens of algorithm engineering, which focuses on developing theoretical insights from successful data-driven and heuristic approaches, and vice-versa (heuristics from theory). While the general formulations of the underlying technical questions in this domain typically lead to complex optimization problems with known hardness results, tractable solutions can sometimes be obtained by exploiting domain-specific characteristics that arise in specific transportation systems. He also works closely with public transit agencies and private shuttle operators to gain domain-specific practical insights, calibration of models using real-data, and validation through simulation and real world deployment of our algorithms.