Professor’s Data Helps Students Study Optimization Methods

During the COVID-19 pandemic, American cities spent hundreds of millions of dollars establishing makeshift hospitals to ease the burden on city hospitals. Although well-intentioned, hospital officials didn’t know if these auxiliary facilities should serve in the pre-treatment or post-treatment of patients. 

As a result, many makeshift hospitals were woefully underused. To establish best practices and optimization for their use in the future, Eyyub Kibis, assistant professor at the Feliciano School of Business in the Information Management and Business Analytics department, researched their use from April 2020 to September 2020. “God forbid if another pandemic happens in the future, our results might shed some light on how to use those makeshift hospitals and help officials make better plans,” says Kibis. 

His data helped the students in his Optimization Methods for Business Analytics course understand resource allocation. “We’re always talking about resource allocation and optimization.” says Kibis. “This was an optimization model to efficiently distribute available resources, like money and hospital beds.”  

Mathematical models and optimization methods might appear to be quantitative methods that are used exclusively in business, but Kibis tells his students they have other applications too. “They can be used for nonprofit and for-profit purposes,” he says. “We are providing a service for officials that can be utilized during the time of a pandemic like COVID or Ebola.” 

Beyond optimization, Kibis has researched data mining methods for biological diseases like cancer, which was not much different from his research during the pandemic. “A cancerous cell spreads to nearby cells and then to the entire body. In a pandemic you have patient zero and the disease spreads to nearby patients. It becomes a pandemic,” says Kibis. His cancer research resulted in an optimization method establishing best treatment models and schedules for stage two breast cancer patients. “These topics are related to optimization. In my optimization class we talk about minimizing disease,” says Kibis.

In 2015, the United Nations established 17 global Sustainable Development Goals. Kibis’ research has contributed to its Good Health and Well-Being goal. “My research provides preventative measures. We try to minimize the transmission of disease and improve public health preparedness.”