SEMINAR:Optimizing Foster Care Visitation Scheduling

Guest: Erhun Kundakçıoğlu

Title: Optimizing Foster Care Visitation Scheduling

Date/Time: February 11, 2025, 13:40

Location: FENS L035

Abstract:Child welfare agencies responsible for facilitating regular visits between foster children and their biological parents face challenges due to fixed workforce levels and varying caseloads. We introduce the Foster Care Visitation Scheduling Problem to effectively assign, schedule, and route workers for these visits. Our solution uses a two-phased, network-based optimization approach that (1) preprocesses and constructs a time-space network structure, and (2) solves a novel, large-scale integer optimization problem over this network. This approach, integrated into an accessible interface, enables foster care organizations to optimize resource allocation, enhancing visit consistency and ultimately improving foster children’s quality of life. Computational experiments on instances inspired by real data from New York State demonstrate promising performance.

Bio: Dr. Erhun Kundakcioglu earned his B.S. from Bilkent University, M.S. from Sabanci University, and Ph.D. from the University of Florida in Industrial and Systems Engineering, with a minor in Computer and Information Science and Engineering. He served as an Assistant Professor at the University of Houston (2009–2013) before joining Ozyegin University in 2013. Dr. Kundakcioglu is the founder of Datart R&D Management Consulting and Software Development and served as Director and Distinguished Scientist at Optym (2019–2021). His research centers on mathematical optimization in healthcare and humanitarian aid operations. He is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Global Optimization, Optimization Letters, SN Operations Research Forum, and the Journal of Biomedical Data Mining.