Haitao Li (center), an associate professor of logistics and operations management at UMSL, was named Inventor of the Year by the National Academy of Inventors. The recognition was announced during the annual Research & Innovation Week April 17-24 at UMSL. Pictured (from left) are Professor of Logistics and Operations James Campbell, Chancellor Tom George, Li, College of Business Administration Dean Charles Hoffman and Vice Provost of Research Nasser Arshadi. (Photo by August Jennewein)
Making an impact on the strategic success of companies and organizations is something Haitao Li has focused his career on.
Because of his contributions, Li, an associate professor of logistics and operations management in the College of Business Administration at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, was named Faculty Inventor of the Year by the National Academy of Inventors. The recognition was announced during the annual Research & Innovation Week April 17-24 at UMSL.
“It is a great honor for me, and I am thrilled to see the value of my research in optimization and prescriptive analytics have been recognized,” Li said. “I see this as a milestone in my career and hope to make more significant contribution to the society.”
This award is given to a faculty member whose innovative research has led to discoveries with significant commercial potential. Li uses mathematical modeling to optimize resources and significantly improve efficiencies in various industries.
“To me, it is always a joy and excitement to see how optimization may prescribe solutions to a variety of problems in manufacturing, service, logistics and supply chain, construction and military, and help people make better decisions under a complex and uncertain environment,” he said. “My recent work focuses on developing new solution methods that combine techniques in optimization, statistics and artificial intelligence for handling large-scale optimization problems under uncertainty. My recent research breakthrough in this area has successfully developed a dynamic and adaptive algorithmic framework for solving large-scale project scheduling problems with both limited resources and uncertain task durations. This has paved the way for the design and development of new applications and scheduling tools to significantly improve project performance.”
Li currently has a U.S. patent pending, two provisional patents ands several invention disclosures.
Sharon Johnson, professor of social work at UMSL, was named Senior Investigator of the Year by the National Academy of Inventors. The recognition was announced during the annual Research & Innovation Week April 17-24 at UMSL. Pictured (from left) are Chancellor Tom George, Johnson, Director of the School of Social Work Lois Pierce and Vice Provost of Research Nasser Arshadi. (Photo by August Jennewein)
Sharon Johnson, professor of social work at UMSL, was named Senior Investigator of the Year. Johnson, who also recently received a University of Missouri System President’s Award for Intercampus Collaboration, is currently leading a more than $1 million grant. Through it the School of Social Work at UMSL and the School of Social Work at the University of Missouri–Columbia will work to increase the behavioral health work force who serve high-need young adults ages 16-25 throughout the state and in East St. Louis, Ill. The grant, awarded by the United States Health Resources and Services Administration, extends over the next three years and allows both campuses to train a total of 84 graduate-level social work students.
UMSL is one of the original 33 charter institution members of the National Academy of Inventors. NAI now has 166 member institutions of all sizes, more than 3000 individual members and 414 elected fellows.
Click here to download presentations from Research & Innovation Week.
