Hugh Medal receives Student of the Year Award

Photo of Hugh MedalDr. Heather Nachtmann, Director of the Mack-Blackwell Rural Transportation Center announced that Hugh Medal has been selected as the Mack-Blackwell Rural Transportation Center (MBTC)’s 2008 Outstanding Student of the Year based on the contributions made to MBTC through the project: Routing Models for Rural Networks with Time-Varying Constraints

Hugh Medal is a doctoral student in Industrial Engineering at the University of Arkansas. He graduated from North Dakota State University with a B.S. in Industrial Engineering and Management in 2006. Hugh’s research interests are in modeling, simulation, optimization and its application to transportation and logistics problems. Hugh recently completed a master’s thesis entitled “Multi-Objective Simulation Optimization: A comparison of Methods.” Hugh examined the use of a variety of simulation optimization techniques on a multi-objective military transportation logistics problem. Hugh’s research for the Mack-Blackwell Rural Transportation Center focused on routing models for rural transportation networks with time-varying constraints. The models developed focused on the transportation of live chickens in a rural poultry network with an emphasis on being able to deal with disease outbreak in the poultry industry and how to find alternate routes to reach their destinations so that the chickens being transported are not exposed to the potential disease. Hugh’s research was presented at the Industrial Engineering Research Conference in May of 2008. Hugh is a model student with exceptional academic skills, a promising researcher, and an active student participant in a variety of student organizations. Hugh’s goal is to continue as researcher and educator upon graduation.

Title of Student’s Thesis: Multi-Objective Simulation Optimization: A comparison of Methods
Title of Student’s MTBC Paper: Routing Models for Rural Networks with Time-Varying Constraints

Release date: 6/1/2009