Harsha Gangammanavar

Harsha Gangammanavar is an Associate Professor in the Department of Operations Research and Engineering Management (OREM) at Southern Methodist University (SMU), affiliated with the Data Science Institute. He holds a Ph.D. in Operations Research and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from The Ohio State University, and a B.E. in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Visvesvaraya Technological University, India.

Education:

• Ph.D. in Operations Research, The Ohio State University
• M.S. in Electrical Engineering, The Ohio State University
• B.E. in Electronics and Communication Engineering, Visvesvaraya Technological University

Research Interests: His work focuses on stochastic programming, large-scale computational optimization, and their applications in infrastructure systems, healthcare, and wireless communication. Key areas include optimization under uncertainty, stochastic decomposition methods, and scalable algorithms for power systems and renewable energy integration.

Recent Activities & Awards:

• Recipient of NSF XTRIPODS grant for collaborative research in data science (2024).
• DOE Office of Science grant for multiscale stochastic optimization (2022).
• ONR grant for decomposition-based stochastic models in discrete-event systems (2022).
• Awarded INFORMS Undergraduate Student Paper Award (2021) and INFORMS Minority Affairs Poster Competition (2016).

Advising & Grants:

• Current advisees include Ph.D. students Ishara A.A.D.H., Jackson Forner, Chhavi Sharma, and Zhiyuan Zhang.
• Former students Niloofar Fadavi, Sakitha Ariyarathne, and others have secured roles in industry and academia.
• Active in securing grants from AFOSR, ONR, DOE, and NSF.

Labs & Teams: Leads research on stochastic optimization algorithms, power grid resilience, and healthcare applications through interdisciplinary collaborations. Open to motivated students for Ph.D. research in optimization and data science.