This event is open to all U-M students, faculty, and staff.

Title:
Predictive Analytics, Energy Systems, and Storms

Abstract:
Electric power systems are critical for daily life, yet they regularly experience widespread impacts from natural hazards like hurricanes and thunderstorms. Having predictions of these impacts prior to the event has the potential to improve the response by utilities, allowing them to restore power more quickly and efficiently. This talk will present an overview of how predictive modeling can help utilities in this setting. This provides an example of the broader type of work that IOE students can do in the area of predictive modeling.

Bio:
Dr. Seth Guikema is a Professor in the Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Michigan. Prior to arriving at U-M in 2015, he was an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering (DoGEE) at Johns Hopkins University. He is also an adjunct Professor II in the Department of Safety, Economics, and Planning at the University of Stavanger in Norway, and a Data Science Research Fellow at One Concern, Inc., a Silicon Valley start-up. His academic training includes a B.S. in Civil & Environmental Engineering (Cornell University), a M.S. in Civil & Environmental Engineering (Stanford University), a M.E. by thesis in Civil Engineering (University of Canterbury in New Zealand), a Ph.D. in Management Science & Engineering with a concentration in Engineering Risk & Decision Analysis (Stanford University), and a postdoctoral research position in Civil & Environmental Engineering (Cornell University).

Dr. Guikema's research is highly interdisciplinary. Much of his group's recent work is focused on the problems of urban and infrastructure resilience and sustainability in a changing climate, grounded in data-driven risk analysis and complex systems simulation. One major topic is developing, testing, and implementing risk analysis methods based in machine learning, stochastica and agent-based simulation, game theory, and decision analysis. Another strong research thrust in the group is using modern simulation methods to more fully understand the role of human behavior in the evaluation of vulnerability and risk in hazard-prone regions.

Seth is currently the Area Editor for Mathematical Modeling in the journal Risk Analysis, was an Associate Editor for the ASCE Journal of Infrastructure Systems until 2018, and is on the editorial boards of the journals Reliability Engineering and System Safety and Performability Engineering. He previously completed a three-year term on the governing Councils of the International Society for Risk Analysis and the INFORMS Decision Analysis Society.