As of 1 September Karen Aardal is full Professor Optimization at the Delft University of Technology and becomes head of the Optimization and Systems Theory group. The four preceding years Aardal was a senior researcher at CWI.
At CWI Aardal worked on discrete programming. Together with Jarek Byrka, who received his PhD last year, she developed algorithms to optimize positioning of facilities like banks and power stations. Aardal foresees many optimization challenges, like improved ambulance planning, more efficient transport and optimizing the use of operating rooms in hospitals. She also wants to utilize techniques from other mathematical disciplines.
During her years at CWI Aardal had a part-time position at the Eindhoven University of Technology in 2005. In addition, she was and is Area Editor of INFORMS Journal on Computing and Associate Editor of Mathematical Programming B, Networks and Operations Research Letters and a number of other specialist journals.
CWI wishes her the best at TU Delft!
