Dr. Natashia Boland (born 1967) was a professor in the mathematics department at the University of Western Australia, where she was born and raised, from 2008 to 2014. Afterwards she pursued research at the University of Waterloo in Canada, and at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the USA. Presently, Boland has contributed to over 60 publications of research. She has made contributions to airline scheduling, modeling of infrastructure networks, planning pricing strategies for demand, and optimization for environmental modeling.
Influenced early by gifts of her parents and grandfather, she showed an inclination toward organization of structures and their operations.[1] Her family, however, was not her only influence as she was inspired by both her elementary teacher Mrs. Martini and her high school math teacher Janet Hunt.[1] Being a proper example, her teacher Janet Hunt further invigorated continued interest in mathematics.[1]
Boland's research and application in the transportation sector was not limited to the airline industry as she, along with her colleagues, generated schedules pertaining to both public and private travel including trains, planes, and buses.[2]
Early Life
editBoland was born in Perth, Western Australia. Her parents exposed her from an early age to the toys that would influence her to become what she has today. Legos and Meccano were the first toys given to her by her parents.[1] She showed curiosity and aptitude for creating better systems to transport toys back and forth from various places.[1]
Boland attended Churchlands High School for her secondary schooling, and was inspired by her mathematics teacher, who taught her for four of her five years of secondary schooling. She also attended a math camp at the National Mathematics Summer School in Canberra.[1]
Education
editGrade School
editBoland's second grade teacher Mrs. Martini was the instructor that enabled her to expand her mathematical scope of knowledge beyond required material by allowing her to access to outside sources beyond her grade level.[1] Even when she was sick, Boland showed determination by completing her entire years worth of math books in only two weeks of illness.[1] Her learning of higher maths at an early age did not stop there as Boland's math teacher at Churchlands High School in Perth also granted her access to more advanced materials.[1]
Higher Education
editBoland pursued degrees in both mathematics and computer science attending the University of Western Australia. She at first hated computer science, but later began to love it as she realized how intertwined mathematics and computers were. She began to explore the limitless possibilities that computer science had to offer, especially by writing programs that could display equations in more than just letters and numbers. For her honor degree, Boland studied with another researcher on robotics. Her aim was to explore how a robot could be controlled, and how to make this most efficient or effective. Upon completion of her honors program, Boland went on to complete a PhD, after which she completed two postdoctoral fellowships, one at the University of Waterloo in Canada, and one at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Research
editTransportation
editOne of the first problems to catch Natashia Boland's attention was in airline crew scheduling. She wished to explore the most efficient combinations of a particular crew by evaluating the multitudes of different combinations of crew members.
Optimization and Strategy
editBoland conducted research in how to effectively schedule network upkeep to enable the network to operate at its efficient rate.[3] She worked in particular on the multiple variables of the demand function of products in order to maximize the market demand for specific goods.[4]
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- ^ a b c d e f g h i "Dr Natashia Boland, operations researcher | Australian Academy of Science". www.science.org.au. Retrieved 2016-12-10.
- ^ Wallace, Mark; Boland, Natashia; Burke, Edmund. "Transport scheduling: Meeting the challenges of scale, complexity and uncertainty". Computers & Operations Research. 40 (3): 655–656. doi:10.1016/j.cor.2012.10.011.
- ^ Boland, Natashia; Kalinowski, Thomas; Kaur, Simranjit. "Scheduling network maintenance jobs with release dates and deadlines to maximize total flow over time: Bounds and solution strategies". Computers & Operations Research. 64: 113–129. doi:10.1016/j.cor.2015.05.011.
- ^ Talebian, Masoud; Boland, Natashia; Savelsbergh, Martin. "Pricing to accelerate demand learning in dynamic assortment planning for perishable products". European Journal of Operational Research. 237 (2): 555–565. doi:10.1016/j.ejor.2014.01.045.