Business PhD Spotlight: Maryam Zakeri
Maryam Zakeri is a PhD candidate in Operations & Information Systems who credits her growth-oriented mindset and strong aspiration for pursuing advanced education to her family. By the age of 16, she felt a strong motivation to continue her education and began exploring various academic fields and their corresponding career opportunities.
Opting to study her favourite engineering discipline, industrial engineering, she began her post-secondary studies at Sharif University of Technology. This undergraduate degree aligned with her fascination for optimizing systems and processes in service and production industries.
Her academic journey continued under the supervision of Dr. Jonathan Patrick, as she earned a master’s degree in Health Systems at the Telfer School of Management at the University of Ottawa. Maryam developed a simulation model for her master's thesis to evaluate policies aimed at better managing capacity in Ontario's network of community care facilities. It was during this time that Maryam gained a much deeper knowledge of the Canadian healthcare system, which focused her interests in healthcare operations management.
Today, as a PhD student in Edmonton, where she joined her fiancé, Maryam continues to honour the call to understand the dynamics of healthcare systems. At the Alberta School of Business, Maryam applies her talent for creating mathematical models and statistical methods to predict enhanced outcomes and solutions for improvements in healthcare.
“My research centers on using econometric models, statistical analysis, and machine learning techniques to study behavioural operations management in healthcare settings,” says Zakeri.
Maryam’s current working paper examines the impact of emergency medical service (EMS) crew workloads in Edmonton and Calgary, looking at on-scene decisions that dial in on two measurable variables: scene time and patient transport to a hospital.
“I use multiple Alberta Health Services (AHS) databases for detailed analysis but what makes this research journey fascinating and highly rewarding is working with academic experts in operations management as well as with EMS professionals in AHS,” says Zakeri. This combination allows Maryam to apply her cutting-edge research skills to real-world problems that matter.
Maryam Zakeri is in her 6th year as a PhD student specializing in Operations & Information Systems at the Alberta School of Business under the supervision of professor Armann Ingolfsson.