Appointment planning in healthcare and the legal system show great similarity: both settings have random arrivals of jobs (patients or legal cases), and, often, for each job a series of tasks with random duration to be executed at different points in time by different sets of servers.

Building on our considerable expertise in healthcare, this project aims to extend Operations Research methods for multi-appointment planning in a random environment inspired by both healthcare and the legal system. This will offer the opportunity to explore the uncharted territory of optimizing planning in the legal system, starting from a sound basis of Operations Research methods developed for the healthcare system.

You will develop Operations Research models and data-driven decision rules for multi-appointment planning. Typically, you will work in a Markov decision framework, developing tools in approximate dynamic programming, stochastic programming, and reinforcement learning.

You will have the opportunity to implement your decision rules in prototype decision support systems to facilitate their further development towards real-life use in the Dutch legal system.

• You have acquired a PhD degree in mathematics, operations research, econometrics, industrial engineering, or a closely related discipline.
• You have excellent programming skills.
• You are an enthusiastic and highly motivated researcher.
• You have a creative mindset and excellent communication skills.
• You have a good team spirit and like to work in an interdisciplinary and internationally oriented environment.
• You are proficient in English.
• The UT and the faculty EEMCS are inclusive toward underrepresented groups and strive to increase the proportion of female staff. Female applicants are particularly welcome.

• You will be appointed for a period of a maximum of 16 months full-time within a very stimulating scientific environment. The university offers a dynamic ecosystem with enthusiastic colleagues.
• Your salary and associated conditions are in accordance with the collective labour agreement for Dutch universities (CAO-NU);
• Gross salary between € 4.060,- and € 5.331,- per month depending on experience and qualifications;
• Excellent benefits including a holiday allowance of 8% of the gross annual salary, a year-end bonus of 8.3% and a solid pension scheme.
• Free access to sports facilities on campus
• A minimum of 232 leave hours in case of full-time employment based on a formal workweek of 38 hours. A full-time employment in practice means 40 hours a week, therefore resulting in 96 extra leave hours on an annual basis.
• Excellent support for research and facilities for professional and personal development.
• We encourage a high degree of responsibility and independence while collaborating with close colleagues, researchers and other university staff.
• We are also a family-friendly institution that offers parental leave (both paid and unpaid) and career support for partners.

The position will be in the Applied Mathematics department. The Applied Mathematics department has an active research portfolio in stochastic operations research, algorithmic discrete mathematics, complex networks, statistics, systems theory, computational science, and artificial intelligence with applications in health care, energy systems, traffic, and imaging. Find out more information about the groups here: MOR, SACS and MDS.

Our research group, Stochastic Operations Research (SOR), conducts mathematical education and research of internationally high standards in the areas of stochastic processes and mathematics of operations research to contribute to the development of mathematics in a multidisciplinary engineering environment and contribute to a better understanding and functioning of our increasingly complex society. Find out more about the SOR group here.

Your project will also be embedded in the inter-faculty research team CHOIR (Centre for Healthcare Operations Improvement and Research). CHOIR is a research center within the UT that focuses on Operations Research methods for Healthcare Logistics, such as multi-appointment scheduling, surgery scheduling, and resource allocation in times of scarce healthcare capacity. CHOIR is one of the most active and productive research groups in the field of Operations Research and Management in Healthcare. Find out more about the CHOIR group here.

Are you interested in this position? Please send your application via the 'Apply now' button below before February 1, 2025, and include:

• A cover letter (maximum 2 pages A4) emphasizing your specific interest, qualifications, and motivations to apply for this position.
• A Curriculum Vitae, including a list of publications, research motivation and references.
• A copy of your PhD thesis or, if it is not yet available, an outline and summary of your thesis.
• An IELTS-test, Internet TOEFL test (TOEFL-iBT), or a Cambridge CAE-C (CPE). Applicants with a non-Dutch qualification and who have not had secondary and tertiary education in English can only be admitted with an IELTS-test showing a total band score of at least 6.5, internet. TOEFL test (TOEFL-iBT) showing a score of at least 90, or a Cambridge CAE-C (CPE).

For more information regarding this position, you are welcome to contact Richard Boucherie via the following email address: r.j.boucherie@utwente.nl.