IFORS Global Webinar Series
IFORS has launched a Global Webinar Series in 2020!
Several times each year, IFORS will offer free webinars on topics of key interest to those developing and applying Operational Research and Analytics methodologies and models. Speakers from each of the IFORS regions will provide our worldwide community with updates on exciting new challenges, methodologies and solution approaches that impact their region and the world.
Regional representatives on the Administrative Council of IFORS will select speakers and host the webinar. We hope to highlight research on topics relevant to a wide audience (e.g. epidemiological and supply chain research associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, new approaches to improving health worldwide, impacts of global warming, approaches to conservation, etc.). Some webinars may highlight outstanding issues that need new solutions. Some of these webinars may have a single speaker providing new research and/or application results while other webinars may be panel discussions. Each regional representative will organize at least one such talk per year with the goal of updating our entire community on important OR activities.
The overall aim of this webinar series is to strengthen research activities and foster potential collaboration by encouraging the exchange of ideas and the sharing
our successes and challenges.
ITOR Best Paper 2024
Tuesday 30 September 2025
9:00 am Washington DC / 3:00 pm Rome / 9:00 pm China
Hosted by:
Janny Leung (IFORS Past President)
Celso Ribeiro (IFORS ITOR Journal Editor-in-Chief)
Invited Speakers:
Name: Stefano Novellani
Email: stefano.novellani@unipi.it
Affiliation: Università di Pisa
Talk Title: Exact models for the flying sidekick traveling salesman problem
Abstract: The use of drones in parcel delivery is rapidly transforming logistics, offering faster, more flexible, and more sustainable solutions for last-mile operations. In this context, we study the Flying Sidekick Traveling Salesman Problem (FSTSP), in which a truck and a drone cooperate to deliver parcels to customers while minimizing total completion time. The drone can leave and must return to the truck after visiting a customer, performing flights constrained by its battery endurance, while the truck continues to serve other customers.
We propose three new formulations that improve the efficiency of previous models, allowing us to solve previously unsolved benchmark instances. Moreover, we show how these formulations can be adapted to solve various problem variants.
Our work demonstrates how advanced optimization techniques can support drone-assisted delivery systems, providing tools for more efficient and practical logistics operations.
Short bio: Stefano Novellani is an Assistant Professor of Operations Research at the University of Pisa. He holds a Ph.D. in Automatic Control Systems and Operations Research from the University of Bologna, and degrees in Industrial Engineering from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. His research focuses on combinatorial optimization, exact and approximate algorithms (including matheuristics and metaheuristics), stochastic programming, and their application to real-world problems such as vehicle routing, last-mile delivery, drone optimization, shared mobility, and sustainable logistics.
Name: Christian Leonardo Camacho Villalón
Email: christian.camacho.villalon@ijs.si
Affiliation: Institut "Jožef Stefan"
Talk title: "Designing New Metaheuristic Implementations: From Metaphors to Automatic Design"
Abstract: Over the past two and a half decades, the development of optimization algorithms that mimic natural, artificial, and even supernatural behaviors has grown in popularity within the field. This has resulted in the publication of hundreds of novel, metaphor-based algorithms. In this talk, I will present a formal analysis of six highly cited, metaphor-based algorithms proposed for solving single-objective continuous optimization problems. I will contrast the algorithmic components of these "novel" algorithms with those of well-established techniques, such as evolutionary strategies and particle swarm optimization. If time permits, I will also describe METAFOR, a metaheuristic software framework that generates high-performance hybrid metaheuristic implementations without minimal human intervention METAFOR is an efficient alternative to manually designing "novel" metaphor-centric algorithms.
Short bio: Christian L. Camacho-Villalón holds a degree in computer science from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), a master's degree in information science and technology from the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM) and a PhD in engineering science and technology from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). Since 2023, Christian has been a postdoctoral researcher, first at the IRIDIA lab in the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Brussels, Belgium, and currently as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow at the Institut "Jožef Stefan" in Ljubljana, Slovenia. His research interests include black-box optimization, machine learning and active learning, as well as their applications in optimization, machine learning pipelines, and automated algorithm design.
Watch the Previous Webinars: