PhD, LEL
Professor, Industrial Engineering
Canada Research Chair in Novel Optimization and Analytics in Health
Associate Director, Data Sciences Institute (DSI)
Director, Centre for Analytics and Artificial Intelligence Engineering (CARTE)
Email: tcychan@mie.utoronto.ca
Tel: 416-946-5721
Office: MC315
Research Group: Applied Optimization Laboratory (AOL) ,
Centre for Research in Healthcare Engineering (CHE), Centre for Analytics and Artificial Intelligence Engineering (CARTE)
Research Areas
Operations Research
Applied Machine Learning
Research Interests
Operations research; optimization under uncertainty; mathematical programming; probabilistic analysis of systems; applications to radiation therapy; health care operations; sustainability; sports analytics.
Bio
Timothy Chan is the Associate Vice-President and Vice-Provost, Strategic Initiatives at the University of Toronto, the Canada Research Chair in Novel Optimization and Analytics in Health, a Professor in the department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, and a Senior Fellow of Massey College. He was previously Director of the Centre for Healthcare Engineering, Director of the Centre for Analytics and AI Engineering, and Associate Director, Research and Thematic Programming, of the Data Sciences Institute. His primary research interests are in operations research, optimization, and applied machine learning, with applications in healthcare, medicine, sustainability, and sports.
Professor Chan received his B.Sc. in Applied Mathematics from the University of British Columbia (2002), and his Ph.D. in Operations Research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2007). Before coming to Toronto, he was an Associate in the Chicago office of McKinsey and Company (2007-2009), a global management consulting firm. During that time, he advised leading companies in the fields of medical device technology, travel and hospitality, telecommunications, and energy on issues of strategy, organization, technology and operations.
Professor Chan currently holds editorial roles in seven academic journals, including Operations Research, Management Science, and M&SOM. He has served in a variety of leadership and service roles at INFORMS and CORS, including as President of the INFORMS Health Application Society. He has over 120 publications in refereed journals, and is co-author of an upcoming book entitled “Introduction to Markov Decision Processes”. He has graduated over 50 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, and takes great pride in cultivating a healthy, inclusive, and productive lab environment.
Professor Chan has received numerous awards and honours for his research, teaching and service. Recent highlights include the President’s Teaching Award from the University of Toronto in 2024, 1st place in the research paper competition at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in 2024, the INFORMS Prize for Teaching OR/MS Practice in 2023, the Pierskalla Best Paper Award from INFORMS Health Applications Society in 2023, 1st place in the INFORMS Case Competition in 2022, and the CORS Eldon Gunn Service Award in 2022. His research has been featured by the CBC, CTV News, Global News, Reuters, CNN, the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, Boston Globe, ESPN, Canadian Business Magazine, and World Economic Forum.
