Dick Barr

Dick Barr is an Associate Professor at the Operations Research & Engineering Management Department within the School of Engineering at Southern Methodist University. His work bridges theoretical optimization techniques with practical applications in telecommunications and high-performance computing.

• Ph.D. in Operations Research from the University of Texas at Austin

Dr. Barr's research focuses on large-scale network optimization, quantum computing algorithms, and data-driven efficiency analysis. He has pioneered methods for traffic grooming in optical networks and computational data analytics.

His publications span journals like Operations Research, Mathematical Programming, and Parallel Computing, with over 4,400 citations. Key work includes:

• 2021: Invisible Hand Heuristic for multicommodity flows
• 2021: Extreme-point Tabu-search for fixed-charge networks
• 2006: Network grooming taxonomy in telecommunications

Awards:

• 2015 Harvey J. Greenberg Award for Service

He has advised 24 doctoral students and secured $1M+ in grants from NSF, DARPA, and Lockheed Martin. His business expertise includes startup ventures and consulting for IBM, General Motors, and U.S. government agencies.