This Broadening Participation Research Initiation Grant in Engineering (BRIGE) grant provides funding to quantitatively assess the loss of efficiency that occurs in humanitarian and public health logistics systems in the absence of a centralized decision-making authority and to discover mechanisms to mitigate this impact by optimally designing system parameters. Centralized decision-making in such settings is unlikely, but decentralized system outcomes can be poor. This research will examine settings in which individuals choose a facility for service, for example, to pick up needed supplies after a disaster or be vaccinated against an infectious disease. Models will be created by integrating concepts from game theory and optimization to represent decisions of decentralized agents, who act according to different objectives but whose decisions impact overall system outcomes. New theoretical performance bounds will be developed to compare the performance of the decentralized system to a best-case system in which a centralized planner can assign individuals to facilities. Efficient algorithms will be sought to solve the decentralized problem. Finally, mechanisms will be designed to coordinate the decentralized system, or ensure that its performance more closely approximates a centralized one.
If successful, the results of this research will lead to the creation of new optimization and game theory tools with significant potential to inform decision-making in humanitarian and public health logistics systems. The research will highlight opportunities for greater efficiency and effectiveness in these settings, improving the utilization of scarce resources and outcomes for affected populations. Analysis of the proposed models will also advance theoretical understanding of more general decentralized networks. The proposed research activities are integrated with a broadening participation plan that will create pathways to engineering careers for pre-college and undergraduate students from underrepresented groups by engaging these students in outreach and research activities that illustrate ways that engineers make a difference in society.
