Statement of Purpose

Zuhayer Mahtab
I am applying to Purdue University to pursue a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering. My
research interests include logistics, transportation systems, and sustainable systems.
Previously, I have worked on six journal papers, once as a first author, two of which have been
published. Ultimately, my career aspiration is to become a professor at a research university.

My motivation to pursue doctoral research stems from my research experiences as an

undergraduate student. Under the supervision of Dr. Abdullahil Azeem, I completed my
undergraduate dissertation focusing on the application of optimization in disaster logistics. My
inspiration to conduct research on disaster logistics stemmed from my experiences of the human
suffering caused by natural disasters in my country, Bangladesh. I strove to develop a decision-
making tool to help disaster officials allocate resources effectively and responsibly. To achieve
this, I formulated a multi-objective robust stochastic mixed-integer linear programming
(MILP) model that identifies the location of temporary facilities, determines the amount of
pre-stocked inventory, and provides a detailed relief distribution and vehicle schedule while
considering uncertainty in the intensity of disasters. To test it, I developed a case study on
Bangladesh floods. A journal paper has been prepared from this dissertation that is currently
under review by Annals of Operations Research.

Immediately after my graduation, I joined Dr. Syed Mithun Ali’s research group where I have
now participated in several projects. My interest in pursuing sustainable systems research grew
after I participated in two sustainability-related projects in that group. First, we predicted the
performance of a green supply chain using the Bayesian Belief Network (BBN). This research
proposes a BBN-based performance metric that will give managers an idea of how well their
company is performing in terms of environmental sustainability. A journal paper resulting
from this project is currently under the process of revisions for the Journal of Cleaner
Production.

After the completion of this project, I collaborated with my research group peers on a project
on supply chain sustainability through which we investigated the enablers of social
sustainability using the Best Worst Method. For this purpose, we used an extensive literature
review, gathered expert opinions and analyzed the data. This paper has been published in
Sustainable Production and Consumption.

In sum, my active involvement in research for more than two years has provided me with the
skills needed to pursue doctoral studies. I want to study at Purdue University because of the
strong sustainable systems and logistics research groups. There are a few faculty members
whose projects are especially exciting to me. Hua Cai has been working on emerging
transportations systems which really interested me. I am also interested in Roshanak
Nateghi’s work on energy nexus. I also find Seokcheon Lee’s work on drone logistics really
exciting and relevant to my research interests. Reading several of their papers has given me
the sense that I will be a great fit for the Industrial Engineering program, as my research
interests are closely aligned with theirs.