Hamsa Balakrishnan
Associate Department Head
William E. Leonhard (1940) Professor of Aeronautics & Astronautics
MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Building 33-207
Office Phone Number: 617.253.6101
hamsa@mit.edu
Hamsa Balakrishnan is the William E. Leonhard (1940) Professor and the Associate Department Head of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She received her PhD from Stanford University, and a B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. Her research is in the design, analysis, and implementation of control and optimization algorithms for cyber-physical infrastructures, with an emphasis on air transportation.
Professor Balakrishnan is the recipient of an NSF CAREER Award in 2008, the inaugural CNA Award for Operational Analysis in 2012, the AIAA Lawrence Sperry Award in 2012, the American Automatic Control Council’s Donald P. Eckman Award in 2014, and multiple best paper awards. She is an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Cynthia Barnhart
Ford Foundation Professor of Engineering
Professor, Operations Research
MIT School of Management, Building E62-561
Office Phone Number: 617.253.3815
cbarnhar@mit.edu
A member of the Institute’s faculty since 1992, Barnhart has a distinguished record of service to her students and community. She is a Ford Foundation Professor of Engineering and a professor in Operations Research at MIT Sloan. She previously served as associate and acting dean of the School of Engineering and co-directed both the Operations Research Center and the Center for Transportation and Logistics. Barnhart was Chancellor of MIT from 2014 until 2021.
Her teaching and research are in the areas of large-scale optimization and analytics, with a focus on applications in transportation and logistics systems. She has supervised scores of graduate and undergraduate theses across a range of disciplines, and has published widely in the flagship journals of her field.
Barnhart came to MIT in 1984 to pursue graduate work in transportation and operations research, earning her SM in transportation in 1985 and her PhD in 1988. An INFORMS Fellow and elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering, she has received honorary doctorates from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (2014) and the University of Toronto (2016).
Peter P. Belobaba
Principal Research Scientist
MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Building 33-318
Office Phone Number: 617.253.7573
belobaba@mit.edu
Peter P. Belobaba is Principal Research Scientist in the International Center for Air Transportation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he teaches graduate subjects on The Airline Industry, Airline Management, and Air Transportation Operations Research. He is Program Manager of MIT’s Global Airline Industry Program and Director of the PODS Revenue Management Research Consortium. Dr. Belobaba holds an MS in Transportation and a Ph.D. in Flight Transportation Systems from MIT. He is a lead author and editor of the recently released book, The Global Airline Industry, 2nd Edition.
Dr. Belobaba has been involved in research related to airline economics, pricing, network planning, competition and revenue management since 1985. His doctoral dissertation entitled, “Air Travel Demand and Airline Seat Inventory Management”, is widely recognized as the first Ph.D. thesis published on the topic of airline yield management. He has worked as a consultant on the development, testing and implementation of pricing, revenue management and distribution systems at over fifty airlines and other companies worldwide. He has also published numerous articles in a variety of journals, including Airline Business, Operations Research, Transportation Science, Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, and Journal of Air Transport Management. In 2016, Dr. Belobaba was awarded the INFORMS Impact Prize for his “pivotal role in the creation and wide-spread adoption of revenue management”.
R. John Hansman
T. Wilson Professor of Aeronautics & Astronautics
Director, MIT International Center for Air Transportation
MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Building 33-303
Office Phone Number: 617.253.2271
rjhans@mit.edu
R. John Hansman is the T. Wilson Professor of Aeronautics & Astronautics MIT, where he is the Director of the MIT International Center for Air Transportation. He conducts research in the application of information technology in operational aerospace systems. Dr. Hansman holds 6 patents and has authored over 250 technical publications. He has over 6000 hours of pilot in-command time in airplanes, helicopters and sailplanes including meteorological, production and engineering flight test experience. Professor Hansman chairs the US Federal Aviation Administration Research Engineering & Development Advisory Committee (REDAC) as well as other national and international advisory committees. He is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering (NAE), is a Fellow of the AIAA and has received numerous awards including the AIAA Dryden Lectureship in Aeronautics Research, the ATCA Kriske Air Traffic Award, Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award, a Laurel from Aviation Week & Space Technology, and the FAA Excellence in Aviation Award.
Amedeo R. Odoni
T. Wilson Professor Emeritus of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Professor Emeritus of Civil and Environmental Engineering
MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Building 33-332
Office Phone Number: 617.253.7439
arodoni@mit.edu
Amedeo Odoni is the T. Wilson Chair Professor Emeritus of Aeronautics and Astronautics and of Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT. He specializes in operations research and its applications to airport systems, air traffic management, and urban transportation and services. Among many positions, he has served as Co-Director of the FAA’s National Center of Excellence in Aviation Operations Research (1996-2002) and of MIT’s Operations Research Center (1986-91), the MIT Airline Industry Program (1999-2009) and the Future Urban Mobility Project (2010-15) in connection with the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART). He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of INFORMS, and the recipient of numerous awards for his teaching and research. He has more than 100 professional publications and 9 books to his credit, including the internationally popular textbooks Urban Operations Research (with R. C. Larson), Airport Systems: Planning, Design and Management (with R. de Neufville), and The Global Airline Industry (co-edited with P. Belobaba and C. Barnhart). He has served as consultant to several national and international organizations and to many of the busiest airports in the world on projects related to many aspects of airport planning and design and to air traffic management.