Faculty Profile

Lawrence Bodin Professor Emeritus of Management Science Phone: (301) 405-2210 Office: 4544 Van Munching Hall Email: lbodin@rhsmith.umd.edu

Ph.D., Operations Research, University of California, Berkeley

Dr. Bodin's research and consulting interests are in the areas of network optimization, large optimization models, transportation planning, logistics and distribution, and the solution of vehicle routing and scheduling problems over street networks. He has consulted for many organizations including the United States Postal Service, Federal Express Corporation, Southern California Gas Company, and Waste Management, Inc.

Professor Bodin's major research activities in in developing models and algorithms to solve like optimization models - primarily combinatorial optimization and vehicle routing problems. Most of Professor Bodin's activities have been concerned with the solution of these routing problems over geographic data bases and the problems that are encountered when the solution has to be imbedded on top of a street network. The systems that Professor Bodin has helped develop are being used by some of the major delivery companies, newspaper delivery companies, public utilities and sanitation companies.

Professor Bodin spent a year on sabbatical at the University of Bologna in Italy. There, he worked with Professor Aristede Mingozzi and his colleagues on the analysis of the Rollon-Rolloff problem, a problem encountered by most major sanitation companies. Additionally Professor Bodin gave a series of lectures at the University of Bologna on mathematical modeling and vehicle routing over street networks.

Professor Bodin also completed a study with the San Diego Padres baseball team. He developed a model which allowed the Padres to rank the players eligible for the 1997 baseball expansion draft. The model was an accurate predictor of the players that the Padres eventually saved in the expansion draft. Professor Bodin developed a procedure for the placing of rabbinical students who are graduating from Hebrew Union College. This procedure was successfully used in 1997 & in 1998. This procedure is, based on the procedure for placing medical students into intern positions.

Professor Bodin was chairman of the MS Oversight Committee within the Smith School. In that capacity, Professor Bodin has led the design of the Fast Forward program which allows undergraduate students in Computer Science and Biology to earn a Master of Science degree from the College of Business and Management with only one additional year of graduate work.