Operations Research and Information Engineering, Cornelluniversity

Mark E. Lewis

Professor

Operations Research and Information Engineering, CornellUniversity

221 Rhodes Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853

Phone: 607-255-0757
Email: mark ‘dot’ lewis ‘at’cornell ‘dot’ edu

Employment

Professor, School of Operations Research and Information Engineering, Cornell University, 2011 -- present.

Associate Professor, School of Operations Research and Information Engineering, Cornell University, 2005 – 2011.

Assistant Professor, Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering, University of Michigan, 1999 – 2005.

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration, University of British Columbia, 1998 – 1999.

Researcher, Lucent Technologies/Bell Labs, 1994-1998.

Education

Ph.D., Industrial and Systems Engineering

Georgia Institute of Technology, 1998

Thesis Area: Stochastic Dynamic Programming

M.S., Theoretical Statistics

FloridaStateUniversity, 1995

B.S., Mathematics and B.A., Political Science

EckerdCollege, 1992

Awards

Zellman Warhaft Commitment to Diversity Faculty Award, Cornell University (2012)

National Academy of Engineering, Frontiers on Engineering, Participant, 2007

Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), NSF, 2002 (awarded in 2004)

Harold R. Johnson Diversity Award, University of Michigan, 2004

Sloan Foundation Mentor of the Year, 2003

INFORMS George B. Dantzig Dissertation Award Runner-up, 1999

NSF-NATO Postdoctoral Fellow, 1998-1999

Bell Laboratories Cooperative Research Fellow, 1993-1998

James Robinson Minority Service Award Recipient, 1992

Affiliations/Editorial Appointments

Associate Director and Director of Graduate Studies, School of Operations Research and Information Engineering (2012-2014)

Chair, INFORMS Applied Probability Society (2012-2014)

Member, INFORMS Meeting Committee, (2009-2012)

Co-organizer (with Shane Henderson), INFORMS Applied Probability Society Conference(at Cornell, summer 2009)

Associate Editor (stochastic models), Operations Research (2008-present)

Program Committee, National INFORMS Meeting – New Orleans, held in San Francisco die to Hurricane Katrina (2005)

Editorial Board,Probability in the Engineering and Informational Sciences (PEIS) (2003-present)

Editorial Board,Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE) Transactions (2004-2007)

Member, Council for the INFORMS Applied Probability Society (2002-2003)

Founder and President, INFORMS Minority Issues Forum (2001-2003, 2009-2011)

Faculty advisor, Outstanding Multicultural Industrial Engineers (formerly VIBES) (2000-2005)

Faculty advisor, INFORMS student chapter (2000-2001)

Member, Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS)

Journal Articles

GabrielZayas-Cabán,JinguiXie, Linda V. Green and Mark E. Lewis, “Optimal control of an emergency room triage and treatment process”, 2013. Under review [Abstractor full paper:Treatment-triage.pdf(1.72 Mbytes)] (online appendix)

Kenneth C. Chong, Shane G. Henderson and Mark E. Lewis, “Optimal Fleet Mix and Ambulance Dispatching in Emergency Medical Service Systems”, 2013. Under review [Abstractor full paper:vehiclemix.pdf(1.72 Mbytes)]

Mark E. Lewis andAnandPaul, “Uniform turnpike planning horizon theorems for finite Markov decision processes”, 2013. Under review [Abstractor full paper:turnpike.pdf(360 Kbytes)]

Ravi Kumar, Mark E. Lewis andHuseyinTopaloglu, “Dynamic Service Rate Control for a Single Server Queue with Markov Modulated Arrivals” Naval Research Logistics Quarterly, Vol. 60 (8), December 2013, pp. 661–677.This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. CMMI-0900460 and CMMI-0826255. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF). [Abstractor full paper:Markov-modulated.pdf(210 Kbytes)].

GabrielZayas-Cabán, Mark E. Lewis, Matthew Olson and Samuel Schmitz, “Emergency Medical Service Allocation in Response to Large Scale Events”,IIE Transactions on Healthcare Systems Engineering,Vol. 3(1), January 2013, pp. 57--68.[Abstractor full paper:EMS-Response.pdf].

Hyun-sooAhnand Mark E. Lewis, “Flexible Server Allocation and Customer Routing Policies for Two Parallel Queues when Service Rates are not Additive”, Operations Research, Vol. 61 (2), March/April 2013, 344-358.This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. CMMI-0900460 and CMMI-0826255. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF). [Abstractor full paper:alloc-route-final.pdf(210 Kbytes)].

Douglas G. Down, Ger Koole and Mark E. Lewis, "Dynamic Control of a Single Server System with Abandonments", Queueing Systems: Theory and ApplicationsQueueingSystems: Theory and Applications, Vol. 67(1), January 2011. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. CMMI-0900460 and CMMI-0826255. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF). [abstractor full paper:abandon-submittedR1.pdf(210 Kbytes)].

Luz A. Caudillo-Fuentes, David L. Kaufman and Mark E. Lewis, "A Simple Heuristic for Load Balancing in Parallel ProcessingNetworks with Highly Variable Service Time Distributions”, Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications, Vol. 64(2), February 2010, p 145-165. This material is based upon work supported bythe National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. CMMI-0540808 and CMMI-0826255. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF). [abstractor full paper:heavy-tail-submitted-questa.pdf(244 Kbytes)].

Douglas G. Down and Mark E. Lewis, "A Call Center Model with Upgrades",2010, to appear inProbability and the Engineering and Informational Sciences. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. CMMI-0540808 and CMMI-0826255.Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF). [abstractor full paper:call-center-up.pdf(238 Kbytes)].

David Kaufman and Mark E. Lewis, "Machine Maintenance with Workload Considerations", Naval Research Logistics,Vol. 54(7),750-766, 2007. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. CMMI-0540808. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF). [abstract or full paper: reliability.pdf (249 Kbytes)].

Cheng-Hung Wu, Douglas G. Down and Mark E. Lewis, "Heuristics for Allocation of Reconfigurable Resources in a Serial Line with Reliability Considerations",IIE Transactions,Vol. 40(6), June 2008. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. CMMI-0540808. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF). [abstractor full paper:heuristic-wu.pdf(321 Kbytes)].

Eugene A. Feinberg and Mark E. Lewis, "Optimality Inequalities for Average Cost Markov Decision Processes and the Stochastic Cash Balance Problem",Mathematics of Operations Research,Vol. 32(4), 769-783, 2007. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. CMMI-0540808. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF). [abstractor full paper:mdp-cash-balance.pdf(248 Kbytes)]

Cheng-Hung Wu, Mark E. Lewis and Michael Veatch, "Dynamic Allocation of Reconfigurable Resources in a Two-Stage Tandem Queueing System with Reliability Considerations", IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, Vol. 51(2), 309-314, 2006. This research was supported in part by the NSF grant DMI-0132811 and by the NSFEngineeringResearchCenter for Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems part of the Engineering Research Centers Program of the National Science Foundation under NSF Award Number EEC 95-29125. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the National Science Foundation. [abstract or full paper: reconfig.pdf (215 Kbytes)]

David L. Kaufman, Hyun-sooAhn, and Mark E. Lewis, "On the Introduction of an Agile, Temporary Workforce into a Tandem Queueing System", Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications, Vol 51 (1-2), 135-171, October 2005. The original publication is available at This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DMI-0132811. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF). [abstract or full paper: flex-temp.pdf (215 Kbytes)]

Seongmoon Kim, Mark E. Lewis, and Chelsea C. White III, "State Space Reduction for Non-stationary Stochastic Shortest Path Problems with Real-Time Traffic Information", IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, Vol. 6(3), 273-284, 2005. [abstract or full paper: reduction.pdf (425 Kbytes)]

Seongmoon Kim, Mark E. Lewis, and Chelsea C. White III, "Optimal Vehicle Routing with Real-Time Traffic Information", IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, Vol. 6(2), 178-188, 2005. [abstract or full paper: real-time.pdf (436 Kbytes)]

Douglas G. Down and Mark E. Lewis, "Dynamic Load Balancing in Parallel Queueing Systems: Stability and Optimal Control", The European Journal of Operational Research, Vol. 168, 509-519, 2006. The original publication is available online at This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DMI-0132811. [abstract or full paper: load.pdf(111 Kbytes)]

Seunghwan Yoon and Mark E. Lewis, "Optimal Pricing and Admission Control in a Queueing System with Periodically Varying Parameters", 2004. Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications, Vol. 47(3), 2004. The original publication is available at This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DMI-9908321. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF). [abstract or full paper: congestion_control.pdf (251 Kbytes)]

Eugene A. Feinberg and Mark E. Lewis, "Optimality of Four-Threshold Policies in Inventory Systems with Customer Returns and Borrowing/Storage Options", Probability in the Engineering and Informational Sciences, Vol. 19(1) 45-71, 2005. [abstract or full paper: borrow.pdf(133 Kbytes)]

William L. Cooper, Shane G. Henderson, and Mark E. Lewis, "Convergence of Simulation-Based Policy Iteration", Probability in the Engineering and Informational Sciences, Vol. 17(2), 213-234, (2003). This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DMI-9908321. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF). [abstract or full paper: csbpi.pdf(198 Kbytes)]

Hyun-sooAhn, IzakDuenyas, and Mark E. Lewis, "The Optimal Control of a Two-Stage Tandem Queueing System with Flexible Servers". Probability in the Engineering and Informational Sciences, Vol. 16(4), 453-469, (2002). [abstract or full paper: flex.pdf(270 Kbytes)]

Jason H. Goto, Mark E. Lewis, and Martin L. Puterman, "Coffee, Tea, or ...?: A Markov Decision Process Model for Airline Meal Provisioning". Transportation Science, Vol. 38 (1), 107-118, (2004). [abstract or full paper: canadian_air.pdf(1.5 Mbytes)]

Mark E. Lewis, HayriyeAyhan, and Robert D. Foley, "Bias Optimal Admission Policies for a Nonstationary Multiclass Queueing System". Journal of Applied Probability, Vol. 39, No. 1 (March 2002). This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DMI-9908321. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF). [abstract or full paper: nonstat.pdf (154 Kbytes)]

Mark E. Lewis, "Average Optimal Policies in a Controlled Queueing System with Dual Admission Control". Journal of Applied Probability, Vol. 38, No. 2 (June 2001). [abstract or full paper: dual_ad.pdf(266 Kbytes)]

W.S. Vincent Wong, Mark E. Lewis, and Victor C.M. Leung, "Stochastic Control of Path Optimization for Inter-Switch Handoffs in Wireless ATM Networks".IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, Vol. 9, Number 3 (June). 2001.[abstract or full paper: handoffs.pdf(135 Kbytes)]

Mark E. Lewis and Martin L. Puterman, "A Probabilistic Analysis of Bias Optimality in Unichain Markov Decision Processes",IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, Vol. 46, Issue 1 (January), 96-100. 2001. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DMI-9908321. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF). [abstract or full paper: bias2.pdf (247 Kbytes)]

Mark E. Lewis and Martin L. Puterman, "A Note on Bias Optimality in Controlled Queueing Systems". Journal of Applied Probability, Vol. 37, No 1. March 2000.[abstract or full paper: biasnote.pdf(155 Kbytes)]

Mark E. Lewis, HayriyeAyhan, and Robert D. Foley "Bias Optimality in a Queue with Admission Control". Probability in the Engineering and Informational Sciences, Vol. 13, 309-327. 1999. [abstract or full paper: bias1.pdf (253 Kbytes)

Book Chapters

Mark E. Lewis and Martin L. Puterman, "Bias Optimality". In The Handbook of Markov Decision Processes: Methods and Applications. Edited by Eugene Feinberg and Adam Shwartz. Kluwer, 89-111. 2001. [abstract or whole chapter: chapter.pdf(363 Kbytes)]

Research Grants/Support

Mitre Corporation (Principal Investigator) Emergency Preparedness and Response, 2009-present ($120K)

NSF Grant CMMI-0900460 (co-Principal Investigator) Collaborative Research: Uncountable Markov Decision Processes and their Applications to Optimization of Large-Scale Stochastic Systems, 2009-2013 ($170K (total $400K))

NSF Grant CMMI-0826255 (Principal Investigator) Upgrades, Reneging and Retrials: Advanced Dynamic Control of Service Systems, 2008-2012 ($281K)

NSF PECASE Grant CMMI-0540808(Principal Investigator) Monotone Optimal Policies in Parallel Processing Networks, 2002-2009($375K)

NSF Grant DMI-9908321 (Principal Investigator) Optimal Admission and Pricing in Non-stationary Queueing Systems, 1999-2004 ($271K)

NSF Grant EEC-9529125 in conjunction with the EngineeringResearchCenter for Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (co-Principal Investigator) Responsive Task Allocation and Dynamic Routing, 2002-2005 ($196K)

Georgia Tech FACES Research Award, 1999

GTE Minority Scholarship Recipient, 1988-1992

Select Invited Presentations

“Optimal control of an emergency room triage and treatment process”, Penn State University, November, 2013

“Dynamic Control of a Service Center with Abandonments”, Princeton University, November, 2009

“A Call Center Model with Upgrades”, Columbia University, February, 2008

“Optimality Inequalities for General State and Action Space Markov Decision Processes with Applications to Inventory Control and Cash Balance”, Arizona State University, December 2006

Courses Taught

IOE 316, Introduction to Markov Processes (University of Michigan)

IOE 366, Linear Statistical Models (University of Michigan)

IOE 512, Dynamic Programming (University of Michigan)

IOE 515, Stochastic Processes I (University of Michigan)

IOE 516, Stochastic Processes II (University of Michigan)

IOE 712, Infinite Horizon Optimization (University of Michigan)

ORIE 561, Queueing Theory (CornellUniversity)

ORIE 3510/5510 Introductory Engineering Stochastic Processes (Cornell University)

ORIE 4520 Introduction to Engineering Stochastic Processes II (Cornell University)

ORIE 6500 Applied Stochastic Processes (Cornell University)

ORIE 6510 Probability (Cornell University)

ORIE 6570 Stochastic Dynamic Programming (Cornell University)

Ph.D. Theses Supervised

Seunghwan Yoon, “Optimal Pricing and Admission Control in Non-stationary Queueing System”, 2003. Current Employer: Samsung International (Korea)

Seongmoon Kim, “Optimal Vehicle Routing and Scheduling with Real-Time Traffic Information”, 2003. Current Employer: Associate Professor, Yonsei School of Business, Yonsei University (Korea)

David L. Kaufman, “Dynamic control of production systems with varying service capacity”, 2006. Current Employer: RiskMetrics Group (Ann Arbor, MI)

Cheng-Hung Wu, “Flexible Resource Allocation in ComplexProcessing Networks with Reliability Considerations", 2006. Current Employer: Associate Professor, Department of Industrial Engineering, The National Taiwan University (Taiwan)

Ravi Kumar, Cornell University School of Operations Research and Information Engineering. (Current)

Kenneth Chong, Cornell University School of Operations Research and Information Engineering. (Current and jointly advised by Shane Henderson)

Gabriel Zayas-Caban, Cornell University Center for Applied Mathematics. (Current)