Maria Mayorga

Goodnight Distinguished Chair in Operations Research and Director of Operation Research

Phone: 919.513.1690
Email: memayorg@ncsu.edu
Office: 4327 Fitts-Woolard Hall
Website: https://mayorga.wordpress.ncsu.edu

Maria Mayorga is the director and Goodnight Distinguished Chair in Operations Research. She joined North Carolina State University in August 2013 as a Chancellor’s Faculty Excellence Program cluster hire in personalized medicine. She is a professor in the Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, part of the Healthcare Systems Engineering group. Her goal is to address fundamental research barriers in moving from estimates of efficacy to estimates of the effectiveness of interventions or policies by explicitly considering individual patient preferences when the underlying patient population is heterogeneous. She is also interested in optimally allocating resources in emergency medical service systems. To achieve these goals, Mayorga will create analytical models of health systems that incorporate patient-level data. She uses techniques such as simulation, dynamic programming, applied probability, queuing theory and mathematical programming. She employs multiple sources of secondary data and a mixed methods approach to enable predictions of health outcomes at levels for which it is difficult to conduct studies in practice. This research is inherently interdisciplinary and is thus facilitated via collaborations with health services researchers such as epidemiologists, economists, and medical doctors.

Before joining the NC State faculty, she was on the faculty at Clemson University, Department of Industrial Engineering for seven years. She has authored over 90 publications in archival journals and refereed proceedings. Her research has been supported by NIH and NSF, among others. She received the distinguished National Science Foundation CAREER Award for her work to incorporate patient choice into predictive models of health outcomes.

Research Interests

Her research interests include predictive models in health care, healthcare operations management, emergency response, and humanitarian logistics. Her goal is to use operations research to make recommendations that have a broad impact, inform policy-level decisions and reduce health disparities. She employs a variety of methods, including mathematical models, statistics, simulation, and, more recently, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Education

Degree	Program	School	Year
Ph.D.	Doctorate on Philosophy in Industrial Engineering	University of California at Berkeley	2006
MS	Master of Science	University of California at Berkeley	2002
BS	Bachelor of Science	George Washington University	2000

Honors and Awards

2023 | Alumni Association Outstanding Research Award, NC State Research Leadership Academy
2023 | Most Supportive Faculty Member, NC State Women and Minority Engineering Program
2022 | Finalist, Best Paper Competition, Public Sector Operations Research Society, INFORMS
2022 | Champion of Diversity Equity and Inclusion, NC State Women and Minority Engineering Program
2022 | Outstanding Faculty Service Impact Award, Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
2022 | IISE Fellow Award, Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers
2022 | Provost’s Faculty Fellow Award, NC State University
2021 | MIF Fellow, INFORMS Minority Issues Forum
2019 | University Faculty Scholar, NC State University
2019 | Most Supportive Faculty Award, NC State Women and Minority Engineering Program
2019 | C.A. Anderson Outstanding Faculty Award, Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
2018 | University Faculty Scholar, NC State University
2018 | BRIDGES Participant, UNC Chapel Hill William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education
2017 | Professor of Personalized Medicine Honor, NC State University
2014 | Best Paper Award in Scheduling and Logistics, IIE Transactions
2012 | CAREER Award, National Science Foundation

Discover more about Maria Mayorga

Publications

COVSIM: A stochastic agent-based COVID-19 SIMulation model for North Carolina: Rosenstrom, E. T., Ivy, J. S., Mayorga, M. E., & Swann, J. L. (2024), EPIDEMICS, 46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epidem.2024.100752
Potential impact of annual vaccination with reformulated COVID-19 vaccines: Lessons from the US COVID-19 scenario modeling hub: Jung, S.-mok, Loo, S. L., Howerton, E., Contamin, L., Smith, C. P., Carcelen, E. C., … Lessler, J. (2024), PLOS MEDICINE, 21(4). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1004387
Agent-Based Simulation of Spontaneous Volunteer Convergence to Improve Disaster Planning: Paret, K., Rodriguez, S. A., Mayorga, M. E., Velotti, L., & Lodree, E. J. (2023), NATURAL HAZARDS REVIEW, 24(2). https://doi.org/10.1061/NHREFO.NHENG-1659
Detecting Human Trafficking: Automated Classification of Online Customer Reviews of Massage Businesses: Li, R., Tobey, M., Mayorga, M. E., Caltagirone, S., & Ozaltin, O. Y. (2023, February 22), M&SOM-MANUFACTURING & SERVICE OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT, Vol. 2. https://doi.org/10.1287/msom.2023.1196
Engaging stakeholders in the use of an interactive simulation tool to support decision-making about the implementation of colorectal cancer screening interventions: Meghan. C. C. O'Leary, Lich, K. H., Mayorga, M. E. E., Hicklin, K., Davis, M. M. M., Brenner, A. T. T., … Wheeler, S. B. B. (2023, May 6), CANCER CAUSES & CONTROL, Vol. 5. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-023-01692-0
Evaluation of the US COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub for informing pandemic response under uncertainty: Howerton, E., Contamin, L., Mullany, L. C., Qin, M., Reich, N. G., Bents, S., … Lessler, J. (2023), NATURE COMMUNICATIONS, 14(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-42680-x
Introduction to the Special Issue on Analytical Methods for Detecting, Disrupting, and Dismantling Illicit Operations: Sharkey, T. C., Keskin, B. B., Konrad, R., & Mayorga, M. E. (2023, October 18), IISE TRANSACTIONS, Vol. 10. https://doi.org/10.1080/24725854.2023.2271536
Quantifying association and disparities between diabetes complications and COVID-19 outcomes: A retrospective study using electronic health records: Paramita, N. L. P. S. P., Agor, J. K., Mayorga, M. E., Ivy, J. S., Miller, K. E., & Ozaltin, O. Y. (2023), PLOS ONE, 18(9). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0286815
Assessing the impact of multicomponent interventions on colorectal cancer screening through simulation: What would it take to reach national screening targets in North Carolina: Hicklin, K., Meghan C. O'Leary, Nambiar, S., Mayorga, M. E., Wheeler, S. B., Davis, M. M., … Lich, K. H. (2022), PREVENTIVE MEDICINE, 162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2022.107126
COULD EARLIER AVAILABILITY OF BOOSTERS AND PEDIATRIC VACCINES HAVE REDUCED IMPACT OF COVID-19?: Rosenstrom, E. T., Ivy, J. S., Mayorga, M. E., & Swann, J. L. (2022), 2022 WINTER SIMULATION CONFERENCE (WSC), pp. 1092–1103. https://doi.org/10.1109/WSC57314.2022.10015236

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Grants

Collaborative Research:Unintended Consequences of Law Enforcement Disruptions to Illicit Drug Networks
Optimizing Population Health Outcomes in Diabetic Retinopathy Through Personalized and Scalable Screening Strategies
Using Simulation to Project Long-Term CRC Outcomes Attributable to Clinic-Based Screening Interventions
Detection of Illicit Massage Businesses through Spatial and Socio-Demographic Data Enrichment
ISN2: Interpretable and Automated Detection of Illicit Online Commercial Enterprises
Integrated Systems Model to Inform State and Local Level Planning for the COVID-19 Pandemic (CovSim)
Using simulation to project long-term CRC outcomes attributable to clinic-based screening interventions
Using Simulation to Project Long-Term CRC Outcomes Attributable to Clinic-Based Screening Interventions
Collaborative Research RAPID: Matriculation and Well-Being Under Emergent Events (MWEE): Using Data to Empower Campus Communities in Times of Crisis
RAPID: Documenting Hospital Surge Operations in Responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic