Operations research (OR) is the mathematical study of resource allocation problems, decisions, games, uncertainty, scheduling and optimization.

The various sub-disciplines of OR yield both analytic and computational tools that allow for mathematical modelling and efficient problem solving.

Key application areas include:

  • telecommunications
  • high performance computing
  • logistics
  • manufacturing
  • business systems
  • transportation
  • biological systems
  • natural resource management.

As the nature of OR research is often problem specific, we deal with a wide set of methods applied to a given situation. OR also has a pure nature, which deals with theoretical properties of methods and models.

Variety of disciplines

UQ is ranked in the top 51-100 universities in the world for statistics and operational research.

We excel in a wide variety of sub disciplines in both theoretical OR and applications. Our group sits at the intersection of applied mathematics, statistics, probability, theoretical computer science and various application domains.

Our key research interests include:

  • mathematical programming
  • computational geometry
  • optimal control
  • applied probability
  • stochastic mathematical biology
  • risk modelling
  • queueing theory
  • Monte Carlo simulation
  • applications to transport and logistics
  • applications to natural resource management
  • applications to conservation biology.

Available projects

See our operations research projects

People

Academic

Adjunct and honorary