October 22, 2014

Speaker: Dionne M. Aleman, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto.

Title: Distributed Computing Methods for Large-Scale Health-care Decision Making

Abstract: Medical decision-making requires the analysis of many factors - frequently more than can be adequately interpreted by a human. Medical decision-makers have therefore increasingly turned to mathematical optimization to consider all available information and provide an optimal course of action. However, optimization is limited by computer resources and algorithm sophistication. In this research, we harness advances in parallel and distributed computing technology to solve complex, large-scale health-care problems that are unsolvable by current methods on a single computer. In particular, we focus on applications in radiation-therapy treatment planning and on pandemic modeling and planning.