Ravindra K. Ahuja

Ravindra K. Ahuja (born February 20, 1956) is an Indian-born American computer scientist and entrepreneur. He is currently Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, and CEO of the automation and optimization solutions provider Optym, which he founded in 2000 as Innovative Scheduling, Inc.

Ahuja specializes in mathematical modeling, state-of-the-art network optimization techniques and solving large-scale scheduling problems arising in logistics and transportation. He has developed models and algorithms for scheduling and logistics problems in airline, trucking and railroad industries worldwide. Many of these industry-specific problems were previously considered intractable.

Ahuja has provided scholarly contributions to the theory and applications of network optimization . and served as associate editor of three journals: Operations Research, Transportation Science and Networks.

Early life and education Ravindra K. Ahuja was born in Rampur, Uttar Pradesh, India.

Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur In 1972, Ahuja entered the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT Kanpur), to study mechanical engineering. He earned a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering in 1977 and continued his education as a graduate student at his alma mater. Between 1977 and 1979, he studied maximal arc-disjoint and node-disjoint flow in multicommodity networks and earned a Master of Science in Industrial & Management Engineering.

Career Professor Ahuja has held positions at several prestigious universities, including at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan School of Management as Visiting Professor from 1986 to 1998, at the Rutgers University School of Management as Visiting Professor from 1996 to 1997 and at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT Kanpur), in India as a faculty member from 1982 to 1996. and taught graduate and undergraduate courses, including Operations Research for Management, Introduction to Management Science, Introduction to Computing and Programming Languages, Network Flow Algorithms, Network Optimization, Combinatorial Optimization, Database Management Systems, Design of Production Systems and Operations Management.

Ahuja has contributed to the theory and applications of network optimization and specializes in network flows and network flow modeling. Specifically, Ahuja is a specialist in the domains of airline network planning, railroad planning and scheduling, less-than-truckload (LTL) optimization, pickup and delivery, network optimization, supply chain management and the modeling and optimization of large-scale logistics problems. He co-authored more than 100 research papers and book chapters in prestigious, peer-reviewed research journals. 2003: Pierskalla Award for best paper in Health Applications of Operations Research, INFORMS, “A Column Generation Approach to Radiation Therapy Treatment Planning using Aperture Modulation” 2015: Florida Governor's Business Ambassador Award 2017: Finalist for Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year in the Florida region