Edilson Arruda

Edilson Arruda is an Associate Professor in the Department of Decision Analytics and Risk at the University of Southampton's Southampton Business School. His academic career spans Electrical Engineering with specialization in Operational Research and Optimal Control, focusing on interdisciplinary applications at the intersection of artificial intelligence, operations research, and management science.

His educational background includes a BSc in Electrical Engineering from the Federal University of Mato Grosso (Brazil), followed by MSc and DSc in Electrical Engineering (Operational Research/Optimal Control) from the University of Campinas. Prior academic appointments include Lecturing/Senior Lecturing positions at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, plus postdoctoral work at the National Laboratory for Scientific Computation (Brazil) and Cardiff University.

Arruda's research centers on optimization under uncertainty using Markov decision processes and stochastic modeling, with significant applications in healthcare resource management, logistics, and supply chain analytics. His work addresses critical challenges such as hospital bed allocation, surgical scheduling for military healthcare, epidemic control, and offshore infrastructure management. He leads the FORecasting Turbulence in Hospitals (FORTH) project and has contributed to mass casualty response modeling for blast events.

His publications reveal a strong trend toward healthcare applications of stochastic optimization, particularly in resource-constrained environments. Approximately 60% of his recent work focuses on healthcare modeling, while 30% addresses logistics and supply chain challenges, and 10% explores fundamental methodological advances in Markov decision processes and optimization theory.

As an educator, Arruda teaches advanced modules including Markov Decision Processes, Probabilistic Methods in Operational Research, and Foundations of Business Analytics. He actively supervises PhD students across disciplines including Management, Mathematical Sciences, and Human Development.

He maintains significant external engagement as Chair at Kerala University of Digital Sciences (2022) and as a speaker on patient pathway modeling (2023). His research is conducted through multiple centers including the Institute for Life Sciences, CORMSIS (Centre for Operational Research, Management Science and Information Systems), and the Centre for Healthcare Analytics.