Rate My Professor Shahrzad Valizadeh

Shahrzad Valizadeh is a PhD candidate in the School of Accounting, Information Systems, and Supply Chain at RMIT University, part of the College of Business and Law in the Business & Economics domain. Currently in her second year of doctoral studies as of 2024, her research specializes in optimization techniques applied to the blood supply chain. This critical area involves the collection, testing, processing, and distribution of blood units, which face unique challenges including limited shelf life of blood products, reliance on voluntary donors, and highly uncertain patient demand. Valizadeh's work focuses on developing effective inventory management and ordering systems that minimize shortages while avoiding waste from outdated units, all while optimizing costs and enhancing customer satisfaction in healthcare settings.

Valizadeh holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering and a master’s degree in industrial engineering with an emphasis on logistics and supply chain management. Her PhD thesis examines decision making under uncertainty, utilizing methodologies such as dynamic programming and Markov decision processes. Her interest in these mathematical sciences was cultivated through undergraduate and postgraduate courses in operations research and decision making under uncertainty. She received a prestigious grant from the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute (AMSI) to attend the Winter School 2024, which covered her travel and accommodation expenses. This opportunity allowed her to deepen her knowledge, collaborate with other researchers, network extensively, and discover new applications of mathematical optimization in various fields. Valizadeh has contributed to scholarly publications, including a paper on platelet inventory management in hospital networks using reinforcement learning approaches, demonstrating her impact in advancing supply chain optimization for perishable goods in medical contexts. Her research holds potential for practical implementations that improve healthcare logistics efficiency and reliability.