Community-Based Operations Research

Professor Michael Johnson currently serves as Graduate Program Director of the PhD Program in Public Policy and Chair of the Department of Public Policy and Public Affairs. Dr. Johnson received his Ph.D. in operations research from Northwestern University, M.S. in operations research from University of California, Berkeley, M.S. in electrical engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology in 1987 and B.S. from Morehouse College. Dr. Johnson's research interests lie primarily in operations research/management science planning models for public-sector facility location and service delivery, with applications to subsidized/affordable housing, senior services and community corrections. Dr. Johnson also uses cost-benefit analysis to estimate impacts of public policies and information technology to design decision support systems. His primary mission is to develop quantitative methods that enable public organizations serving disadvantaged and vulnerable populations to jointly optimize economic efficiency, beneficial population outcomes and social equity. His work has appeared in a variety of journals, including Annals of Operations Research, Decision Support Systems, Environment and Planning A, Environment and Planning B, Housing Studies, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Geographic Systems, Journal of Housing Research, Location Science, Management Science, Papers of the Regional Science Association, and Socioeconomic Planning Sciences. Dr. Johnson has served as a National Science Foundation CAREER Postdoctoral fellow, and has previously received postdoctoral fellowships from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Urban Scholars program and the National Consortium on Violence Research. He is currently principal investigator on a Joseph P. Healey grant to develop decision models for foreclosed housing acquisition and redevelopment, and is investigator on a Centers for Disease Control grant to investigate neighborhood crime impacts of subsidized housing redevelopment.