Dr. Marjan Van Den Akker

Biography

Marjan van den Akker obtained her PhD in Mathematics from Eindhoven University of Technology, specializing in scheduling and the allocation of tasks with limited resources over time. After completing her PhD, she worked at the Netherlands Aerospace Centre (NLR), where she focused on modeling, optimization, and simulation in Air Traffic Management and Road Pricing. Currently, she is an Associate Professor in the Department of Information and Computing Sciences at Utrecht University and holds a joint senior position with KLM as part of the KickstartAI program. Her research lies at the intersection of Operations Research and Artificial Intelligence, with a focus on advanced planning algorithms, robust planning, and simulation. Application domains include public transportation and energy networks, with a strong emphasis on real-world relevance and industry collaboration. Marjan has extensive experience working with industry partners such as KLM, NS, ProRail, Qbuzz, TenneT, and Jumbo. Her unique position of conducting applied and experimental research in Operations Research within the Computer Science department allows her to leverage expertise in data-efficient computation. She supervises PhD and Master's students, and her work is published in leading international journals and conferences in Computer Science and Operations Research. She serves as the Program Leader for the Computing Science master's program and teaches a Master's course on Optimization for Sustainability. At the national level, Marjan plays an active role in shaping the field as the President of the Dutch Operations Research Society (NGB) and represents the Netherlands in European (EURO) and international (IFORS) societies. Additionally, she is a member of the executive board of the Dutch Network on Mathematics and Operations Research (LNMB).

Research Interests

Experience

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