Inês Marques

Assistant Professor

Inês Marques is Assistant Professor at the Department of Engineering and Management (DEG, IST, University of Lisbon), and Researcher at the Centre for Management Studies. Her main research areas focus on operations research for operations management, mainly to support planning and scheduling decisions and to improve health care service delivery. She has worked in several research projects in collaboration with health care service providers. She has published in journals in the areas of operations research and management science. She was co-Coordinator of the European Working Group on Operational Research Applied to Health Services (EWG ORAHS) and member of the board of the European Working Group on Practice of Operational Research (EWG POR). She holds a degree in Mathematics Applied to Economics and Management, a MSc in Operations Research and a PhD in Statistics and Operations Research.

Ana Barbosa-Póvoa

Full Professor

Ana Barbosa-Póvoa is a Full Professor in Operations and Logistics, at the Engineering and Management Department of Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), University of Lisbon. She holds a PhD from the Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine and her research focus is on developing a comprehensive understanding of complex problems in supply chains and operations management, supported by novel and sound engineering systems models and techniques. Sustainability, resilience, uncertainty and risk in the design and planning of supply chains are among the main research-addressed domains. Ana has created and coordinates the research group in Operations Management and Logistics and Supply Chain Management (OpLog) at the Centre for Management Studies of IST. She has a large experience of in supervision and has been awarded with several research grants. Her research has led to several national and international awards having twice received the honor of being considered the best researcher in Industrial Management at the University of Lisbon. She is an editor of the Computers and Chemical Engineering Journal and a member of several editorial boards, namely the European Journal of Operational Research, the International Journal of Production Economics, TOP, and Operations Research Perspectives. She is one of the Vice Presidents of the EURO, European Association of Operational Research Society; a founder member of the Euro Working Group in Sustainable Supply Chains of the European Association of Operational Research – where she is currently part of the coordination team, a member of the team that has created the EURO WISDOM (Women in Society  Doing Operational Research and Management Science)  Forum, and a member of the Euro Working Group on Retail, and the Euro Working Group on Location and Analysis.

Tânia Ramos

Associate Professor

Tânia Ramos is an Associate Professor at the Engineering and Management Department at IST – University of Lisbon, and President of the Research Unit CEGIST – Centre for Management Studies of IST. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Management from ISCTE-IUL, her Master’s degree in Operations Research and Systems Engineering from IST and her PhD in Engineering and Management from IST. Tânia’s research focuses mainly on modelling and solving real-world problems related with logistics systems planning, routing, sustainability, reverse logistics, waste management and home care systems. She has several papers published in international journals. She is also the co-author of books in the field of logistics. She has coordinated several national projects on the fields of logistics and waste management.

Diana Jorge

Assistant Professor

Diana Jorge is an Assistant Professor of Operations and Logistics at the Department of Engineering and Management at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), University of Lisbon. She received her PhD in Transportation Systems from the University of Coimbra in 2014. Her research focuses on modeling and solving real-world challenges using operations research methods, particularly in transportation and logistics systems, with a current emphasis on urban logistics. A central aspect of her work is the integration of sustainability objectives, including economic, environmental, and social dimensions.
Diana has co-authored several peer-reviewed articles published in international journals and has participated as a team member in six research projects, three completed and three ongoing. She is currently the coordinator of LL@Green – Optimizing towards Sustainable Last-Mile Logistics, a project dedicated to advancing sustainable last-mile logistics.

Blessing Ikechukwu

Researcher/PhD Candidate

Blessing Ikechukwu is a researcher in the field of mathematics and statistics with a strong interest in data-driven decision-making in healthcare systems. She holds a B.Sc. in Statistics and masters’ degrees in mathematical sciences and mathematical engineering respectively, where her research focused on statistical modeling and machine learning methods for health data analysis. Before joining the SUPPORT-HH project, Blessing worked as a medical statistician with a Pediatric Research Consortium, where she collaborated with multidisciplinary teams to analyze maternal and neonatal health data and support evidence-based medical research. Her work combines statistical analysis, optimization methods, and programming tools such as R and Python to address complex problems in healthcare. Within the SUPPORT-HH project, Blessing’s research focuses on the development of optimization models and decision-support tools for staff shift design in home hospitalization services. Her interests lie in operations research, healthcare management, and the application of mathematical modeling to improve healthcare efficiency, workforce planning, and patient outcomes. 

Holly Merelie

Researcher/PhD Candidate

Holly Bea Merelie is a PhD candidate in Engineering and Management at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) and a Research Fellow in the SUPPORT-HH project. Within this project, her research focuses on developing decision-support tools for the strategic planning of Home Hospitalization services. She holds a BSc in Nursing and an MSc in Health Care Services Management, from which her thesis on the impact of socioeconomic deprivation on primary healthcare performance was published in Health Care Management Science and presented at ORAHS 2025.
With over 7 years of clinical practice in the UK and Portugal, she has mentored nursing students and midwives and contributed to several quality improvement initiatives. Her profile combines frontline healthcare experience with a strong interest in Management Science and Operations Research. Her work aims to improve the organisation, efficiency, and planning of healthcare systems, enhancing their accessibility to the populations they serve.