Faculty Profile

• Overview
• Academics
• Research
• Publications
• Honors

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Transportation Systems, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), September 2010. Thesis: Airline Schedule Planning and Operations: Optimization-based Approaches for Delay Mitigation, Advisor: Prof. Cynthia Barnhart, Chancellor, MIT.
• Master of Science (S.M.), Transportation and Operations Research (dual degree), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, June 2007.
• Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech.), Major: Civil Engineering, Minor: Industrial Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras, June 2004.

Academic Positions

• Assistant Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, Department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering, Jan 2013-present. Zero-time appointment with Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Systems Scientist and iLab Mobility Analytics Co-director, Heinz College, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Pittsburgh PA, Sep 2010-Dec 2012.
• Visiting Faculty/Scholar, Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, India, Feb-August 2015.

For more information

• Research Website

Continuing Education

• IE 598 Special Topics Class: Optimization Methods for Large-scale Network-based Systems
• IE 360 Facilities Planning and Design
• IE 598 Special Topics Class: Optimization Methods for Large-scale Network-based Systems
• IE 360 Facilities Planning and Design
• IE 598 Special Topics Class: Optimization Methods for Large-scale Network-based Systems
• IE 360 Facilities Planning and Design
• IE 360 Facilities Planning and Design
• IE 598 Special Topics Course: Optimization Methods for Large-scale Network-based Systems
• IE 360 Facilities Planning and Design
• IE 360 Facilities Planning and Design.

Research Statement

My research aims at the development and application of tools from large-scale optimization, data mining, statistics, simulation, and computational techniques to build logistics and transportation systems that are operationally flexible and dynamically adaptable to improve cost, efficiency, robustness and environmental

impact ￿ which are crucial for a sustainable system. This vision is challenging because of the sheer size of the system, competition between multiple stakeholders and presence of significant uncertainty. To analyze and address evolving transportation infrastructure, I use tools from large-scale optimization, data mining, statistics, simulation, visualization and computational techniques. My research style involves: (i) analyzing large-scale real-world data from public agencies, operators and users to identify high-impact opportunities, (ii) developing quantitative data-driven models and algorithms to address them, and (iii) evaluating impact by testing on realistic simulation testbeds.

Research Interests

• Multi-agent systems
• Shared transportation systems
• Logistics systems and services
• Emergency medical systems
• Air transportation systems
• Statistical modeling and data-mining
• Decision-making under Uncertainty
• Robust planning and operations for large-scale networks
• Transportation and logistics networks
• Data-driven modeling and optimization

Selected Articles in Journals

• A. Faghih-Imani, R. Hampshire, L. Marla and N. Eluru, ￿An Empirical Analysis of Bike Sharing Usage and Rebalancing: Evidence from Barcelona and Seville,￿ accepted to Transportation Research: Part A.
• L. Marla, B. Vaaben and C. Barnhart, "Integrated Airline Disruption Management and Flight Planning to Tradeoff Delays and Fuel Burn," Transportation Science, Vol 51, No. 1, February 2017, pp 88-111.
• L. Marla, C. Barnhart and V. Biyani, "A Decomposition Approach for Robust Commodity Pickup and Delivery with Time-Windows under Uncertainty," Journal of Scheduling, Vol 17, Issue 5, 2014.

Articles in Conference Proceedings

• N. Eggenberg and L. Marla, ￿Congestion in a competitive world: a study of the impact of competition on airline operations,￿ in Proceedings of the Swiss Transport Research Conference (STRC) September 9-11, 2009.
• L. Marla and C. Barnhart (2011), ￿A decomposition approach for shipment pickup and delivery for time-windows under uncertainty,￿ in Proceedings of the Multidisciplinary International Scheduling Conference: Theory and Applications, August 9-12, 2011.
• R. Hampshire and L. Marla. ￿Analysis of Bike-Sharing Usage: Explaining Trip Generation and Attraction from Observed Demand￿, Poster presentation, Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting, 2012.
• R. Krishnan, L. Marla and Y. Yue, “An Efficient Simulation-based Approach to Ambulance Allocation and Dynamic Redeployment,” in Proceedings of the 26th Conference on Artificial Intelligence held by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), July 22-26, 2012. Acceptance rate of 25%, similar to NIPS.
• K. Krishnan, L. Marla and Y. Yue, ￿Robust Ambulance Allocation Using Risk-based Metrics,￿ in Proceedings of the Intelligent Transportation Systems Workshop of COMSNETS (International Conference on Communication Systems and Networks) 2016.
• M. Baranwal, P.M. Parekh, L. Marla, S.M. Salapaka and C. Beck. ￿Vehicle Routing Problem with Time-Windows: A Deterministic Annealing Approach,￿ in Proceedings of the American Control Conference, 2016, Boston.

Other Scholarly Activities

• Invited referee for the following journals: Manufacturing and Service Operations Management, Transportation Research-Part B, Transportation Science, Journal of Air Transport Management, Transportation Research-Part C, 4OR, Transportation Research- Part A, Transportation Research Part D, Annals of Operations Research, Journal of the Production and Operations Management Society, Networks and Spatial Economics, Socio-Economic and Planning Sciences, Flexible Services and Manufacturing, Decision Analysis.

Other Outside Service

• Invited to judge the INFORMS Aviation Applications Section￿s Best Dissertation Prize, 2017.
• Chair, Best Student Presentation Award committee for the Aviation Applications Society, INFORMS Annual Meeting 2016.
• Invited to serve on the National Science Foundation's CMMI Panel, 2014.
• Invited to judge the INFORMS Aviation Applications Section￿s Best Dissertation Prize, 2014.
• Invited to judge the IIE Transactions ￿ Best paper Award for INFORMS, 2013.
• Invited to serve on the National Science Foundation's Cyber-Physical Systems Panel, 2013.

Honors

• National Merit Scholarship Fellow, National Council for Educational Research and Training. (1998-2004 (awarded in 1998).)
• Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship. (2008-2009)
• Ann Hershfang Graduate Scholarship. (2010)
• US Department of Transportation Grant to establish a University Transportation Center (UTC) at Carnegie Mellon University (January 2012)
• Invited to judge the IIE Transactions' Best paper Award for INFORMS (2013)
• Invited to serve on the National Science Foundation's Cyber-Physical Systems Panel (2013)
• Invited to judge the INFORMS Aviation Applications Section's Best Dissertation Award for 2014. (June-Nov 2014)
• Invited to serve on the National Science Foundation's CMMI Panel (2014)
• Invited Keynote speaker for the Society of Women Engineers (Fall 2015)
• United States-India Educational Foundation (USIEF) Indo-US 21st Century Knowledge Initiative Grant awarded, started Fall 2015. Award of $189,000. (Fall 2015)
• Winner, Cross-Regional Collaboration Grant for 2017-2018 by the INFORMS Transportation Science and Logistics (TSL) Society, sponsored by Kalyx Warehousing; with Prof. Gitakrishnan Ramadurai as Co-PI. (Nov 2017)