Research & Teaching

Optimization models, tested on real data.

My research formulates hard optimization problems, from wildfire response to urban food access and air cargo, and designs the algorithms to solve them.

Research lines

Wildfire and emergency logistics

Joint location of aerial suppression bases and water refill points under uncertainty, with two-stage stochastic programming, CVaR and matheuristics.

Facility location and food access

Competitive and public location models that combine MINLP, discrete choice modeling and Fuzzy AHP to place markets and stores where communities need them.

Air cargo and supply chains

Integer programming and online 3D bin packing to load cut flower charter flights more efficiently, in collaboration with MIT's Center for Transportation and Logistics.

Publications & working papers

Published · 2025 A Multi-product Competitive Facility Location Model for Food Purchase: Does the Store Type Matter? da Silva-Ovando, A. C., Granados-Rivera, D., Pesca Santos, J. E., Mejia, G., & Mejia-Argueta, C. Sustainable Systems in an Internetworked Digital World (Proc. ICPR 2025), Lecture Notes in Production Engineering, Springer. doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-19656-9 Peer-reviewed, indexed in Scopus and EI Compendex.
In revision The Cycle-Constrained Aerial Suppression Base and Water Point Location Problem: Joint Siting under Uncertainty with an Application to Cundinamarca, Colombia Pesca Santos, J. E., & Ysa Morla, K. H. The first model to site helicopter bases and water refill points jointly, with an open-data case study built around Colombia's acquisition of its first Firehawk helicopters.
In revision Locating Street Markets: Analysis from Qualitative and Quantitative Factors Using a Discrete Choice Model, Mixed Integer Nonlinear Programming and Fuzzy AHP Pesca, J., Mejía, G., & Gutiérrez-Franco, E. Code on GitHub Applied to the district of Bosa, Bogotá, to balance demand capture with urban planning criteria. Presented at the INFORMS / ALIO / ASOCIO 2024 conference.
In preparation A Two-Stage Decision Support Model for Cut Flower Palletisation in Full Charter Air Freight Pesca, J., Bautista Conde, D. Y., Gutierrez-Franco, E., & Mejia-Argueta, C. Integer programming for allocation and online bin packing for placement, validated on real charter flight data from the Bogotá to Miami corridor. It extends my MIT capstone on Boeing 747-400F charter flights, which reached about 90% average volumetric utilization. Presented at the MIT Global SCALE Network 2026.

Teaching

Business Analytics and Technology · Universidad Externado de Colombia Lecturer since 2026. Final-semester emphasis of the Business Administration program: data quality, KPI design, applied statistics, predictive modeling and data ethics, with student consulting projects that end in a Power BI dashboard and an executive defense.
Optimization Methods II · Universidad Externado de Colombia Lecturer since 2026. Two undergraduate sections on linear and nonlinear programming, modeling and solution techniques.
Logistics and Supply Chain Management · Universidad de La Sabana Teaching assistant from 2023 to 2025 for the undergraduate Industrial Engineering course, alongside a graduate research assistantship in the Logistics Systems Research Group.

MILP · MINLP Stochastic programming Heuristics & matheuristics Fuzzy AHP Gurobi GAMS Python

I am a member of The OR Society (United Kingdom) and the Colombian Association of Operations Research (ASOCIO).

Academic contact

I'm open to co-authorship, applied research projects and academic talks.

jaime.e.pesca.s@gmail.com