Robin Tourlamain
PhD Candidates
Robin is an international PhD student from Belgium whose research focuses on the nurse rostering problem (NRP). The first two years of his project were spent with the CODeS (Combinatorial Optimization and Decision Support) research group in Belgium, focused on local search and other (meta-)heuristics.
Robin came to OPTIMA to explore what is possible for NRP using exact approaches based on integer programming.
Outside of his research, Robin enjoys biking and climbing.
Ghazal Jamirad
PhD Candidates
Ghazal Jamirad’s academic background focuses on cutting-edge research in the realm of molecular dynamics simulation. Her areas of research include nanocomposites, biomaterials, and drug delivery systems. In pursuit of advancing the understanding of these fields, Ghazal is involved in analysing mechanical, thermal, and biological properties across a diverse range of systems. Motivated to contribute to the development of innovative materials in the fields of biomedicine and nanotechnology, Ghazal’s PhD research at the University of Melbourne is supervised by Dr Ellie Hajizadeh and Prof Kate Smith-Miles AO (University of Melbourne).
Jaime Cuartas Granada
PhD Candidates
Jaime Cuartas is a PhD student based in the Department of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, Faculty of Information Technology, at Monash University. His doctoral project, titled “Formal Explainability for Artificial Intelligence in Dynamic Environments,” aims to develop methods for making sequential AI decisions transparent and trustworthy. Jaime is supervised by Assoc. Professor Alexey Ignatiev and Professor Peter Stuckey (Monash University), and Assoc. Professor Julian Gutierrez (Sussex University).
Fangyu Liu
PhD Candidates
Fangyu Liu is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne. His research focuses on derivative-free optimisation(DFO), with particular interest in robust and stochastic model-based methods.
Fangyu is supervised by Dr Lindon Roberts and Prof Kate Smith-Miles AO.
Sandhya Suraweera
PhD Candidates
Sandhya’s project title is “Optimisation models for home care”.
Sandhya is a phD student in Operational Research at RMIT University. Her research interest lie in Optimisation and Operational Research, with a focus on the Nurse Routing and Scheduling Problem. Sandhya holds a BSc in Industrial Mathematics and an Msc in Operational Research. In her current work, she investigates how this problem can be formulated as a Mixed Integer Linear Program and explores optimisation techniques to improve scheduling efficiency and patient care outcomes. Her broader interest include healthcare optimisation, integer programming and applied analytics in public service sectors.
She is supervised by Assoc. Professor Melih Ozlen alongside Dr. Sona Taheri.
Harvey Zhang
PhD Candidates
Harvey is undertaking an OPTIMA Industry PhD project titled “Optimization of Production by ‘Selected Turbine De-Rating’ at Macarthur Wind Farm” with AGL. His research interests revolve around optimization, graph theory, and game theory. The project aims to investigate wind turbine control strategies to maximize power output, addressing challenges posed by significant wake effects. He is undertaking this research at the University of Melbourne supervised by OPTIMA CI, Prof. Michael Kirley (OPTIMA CI) and Dr. Mario Andrés Muñoz.
Prior to this, he completed his Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Melbourne.
Parsa Babadi Noroozi
PhD Candidates
Parsa is a Master of Data Science student at the University of Melbourne. His project focuses on exploring anomaly detection methods to identify issues in satellite telemetry data. He is supervised by Senior Research Fellow, Dr. Mario Andrés Muñoz Acosta.
