Associate Professor

Michael R. Taaffe (Click to hear the correct pronunciation of my name)

NOTE to all students who will be taking ISE 3414 in Fall 2008:

The Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Durham Hall
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, VA 24061

Contact information:

• Phone:   540/231-9144
• FAX:     540/231-3322
• URL:      ise.vt.edu/taaffe
• Email:    taaffe@vt.edu

• Ph.D.   Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Ohio State University
• M.Sc.  Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Ohio State University
• B.A.    Mathematics, Ohio Dominican University

• Virginia Tech, Graduate Program Director, Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, 2003-2006
• Virginia Tech, Associate Professor, Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, 2002-
• University of Minnesota, associate professor, 1990-2002:
  • Department of Operations and Management Science
  • Department of Mechanical Engineering (Industrial Engineering Division)
  • Graduate Program in Scientific Computation
• Northwestern University, visiting professor, Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences, 1994-1995
• University of Rhode Island, assistant professor, Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, 1989-1990
• Purdue University, assistant professor, School of Industrial Engineering, 1981-1989
• Georgia Tech, visiting professor, School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, 1985-1986
• Battelle Memorial Institute, researcher, 1978-79
• Motorists' Mutual Insurance Companies, senior programmer, 1974-75
• The Columbus Dispatch - "Ohio's Greatest Home Newspaper," newsboy (with honors), 1966-1967

• Stochastic Processes
• Computational probability
• Queueing Theory
• Nonstationary stochastic networks
• Methodological issues in simulation modeling and analysis
• Use of stochastic approximations for variance reduction in simulation experimentation

• Nonstationary, infinite-server, phase-type stochastic queueing network modeling and analysis
• Methods for using queueing-network approximations for variance reduction in Monte Carlo simulation experiments

• Rueda, J.E., and Michael R. Taaffe, "The Ph_t / Ph_t / s / k Queueing Models and Approximation," - in review, (Paper in pdf format).
• Nelson, B.L., and Michael R. Taaffe, "The MAP_t / Ph_t / ∞ Queueing System," - in review, (Paper in pdf format and MAPLE code)
• Nelson, B.L., and Michael R. Taaffe, "The [ Ph_t / Ph_t / ∞ ]^k Queueing System: Part II - The Multiclass Network,"  INFORMS JOC  16 (3), (2004), pp. 275-283. 
  (Paper in pdf format), and (MAPLE code and example)

• Nelson, B.L., and Michael R. Taaffe, "The Ph_t / Ph_t / ∞ Queueing System: Part I - The Single Node,"  INFORMS JOC 16 (3), (2004), pp. 266-274.
  (Paper in pdf format), Informs JOC Online Supplement (proofs) in pdf format, and (MAPLE code and example)

• Schmeiser, B.W., Taaffe, M.R., and Wang, J., "Biased Control-Variate Estimation,'' IIE Transactions 33, (2001), pp. 219-228 (special issue of Operations Engineering honoring A. Alan Pritsker (Paper in pdf format)

• Schmeiser, B.W., Taaffe, M.R., and Wang, J., "Control Variate Estimation using Estimated Means,'' IIE Transactions, --- to appear, (Paper in pdf format)

• Taaffe, Michael R., (Editor), " Industrial Engineering Terminology - Revised Edition: Analytical Techniques and Operations Research," Engineering and Management Press, 1999, American National Standards Institute (ANSI), ISBN: 0898061881.

• Nelson, B.L., Schmeiser, B.W., Taaffe, M.R., Wang, J., "Approximation-Assisted Estimation," Operations Research Letters, 20, (1997), pp. 109-118, (Paper in pdf format).

• Schmeiser, B.W., and Taaffe, M.R., "Correlated Decomposition for Analyzing Dynamic Stochastic Systems," Proceedings of the 1996 NSF Design and Manufacturing Grantees Conference, pp. 515-516

• Schmeiser, B.W., and Taaffe, M.R., "Correlated Decomposition for Analyzing Dynamics Stochastic Systems," Proceedings of the 1995 NSF Design and Manufacturing Grantee's Conference, pp. 213-214.

• Schmeiser, B.W., and Taaffe, M.R., "Time-Dependent Queueing Network Approximations as Simulation External Control Variates," Operations Research Letters, 16, (1994), pp.1-10, (Paper in pdf format).

• Johnson, M. A., and Taaffe, M. R., "Tchebycheff Systems: A Review and Interpretation for Probabilistic Analysis," American Journal of Mathematical and Management Sciences, 13, (1993), pp.83-111, (Paper in pdf format)

• Schmeiser, B. W., and Taaffe, M.R., "Correlated Decomposition for Analyzing Dynamic Stochastic Systems," Proceedings of the First Industrial Engineering Research Conference,, May 1992, pp. 457-462.

• Johnson, M. A., and Taaffe, M. R., "A Graphical Investigation of Error Bounds for Moment-Based Queueing Approximations," Queueing Systems - Theory and Applications, 8, (1991), pp. 295-312, (Paper in pdf format).

• Johnson, M. A., and Taaffe, M. R., "An Investigation of Phase-Distribution Moment-Matching Algorithms for Use in Queueing Models," Queueing Systems - Theory and Applications, 8, (1991), pp. 129-148, (Paper in pdf format).

• Johnson, M. A., and Taaffe, M. R., "Matching Moments to Phase Distributions: Nonlinear Programming Approaches," Stochastic Models, 6, (1990), 2, pp. 259-281, (Paper in pdf format)

• Johnson, M. A., and Taaffe, M. R., "Matching Moments to Phase Distributions: Density Function Shapes," Stochastic Models, 6, (1990), 2, 283-306, (Paper in pdf format)

• Edward C. Bronson, Michael R. Taaffe and Leah H. Jamieson, "A Phoneme Model of English Speech for the Design of a Parallel Speech Understanding System," Proceedings of the 1990 International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, 1990, 805-808.

• Johnson, M. A., and Taaffe, M. R., "Matching Moments to Phase Distributions: Mixtures of Erlang Distributions of Common Order," Stochastic Models, 5, (1989), 4, pp. 711-743, (Paper in pdf format).

• Kim L. Ong and Michael R. Taaffe, "Nonstationary Queues with Interrupted Poisson Arrivals and Unreliable/Repairable Servers," Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications, 4, (1989), pp. 27-46, (Paper in pdf format).

• Johnson, M. A., and Taaffe, M. R., "The Denseness of Phase Distributions," Purdue School of Industrial Engineering Research Memoranda, #88-20, (1988), (Paper in pdf format).

• Kim L. Ong and Michael R. Taaffe, "Approximating Ph_t / Ph_t / 1 / c Nonstationary Queueing Systems," Mathematics and Computers in Simulation, 30, (1988), pp. 441-452, (Paper in pdf format).

• Michael R. Taaffe and Gordon M. Clark, "Approximating Nonstationary Two-Priority Nonpreemptive Queueing Systems," Naval Research Logistics, 35, (1988), 1, pp. 125-145, (Paper in pdf format).

• Kim L. Ong and Michael R. Taaffe, "Approximating Nonstationary Ph_t / M_t / S / C Queueing Systems," Annals of Operations Research, 8, (1987), pp. 103-116, (Paper in pdf format).

• Michael R. Taaffe and Kim L. Ong, "Approximating Time-Dependent Non-Exponential Queues," Proceedings of the Winter Simulation Conference, Sheppard, Pooch, Pegden (eds), 1984, 175-178.

• Michael R. Taaffe and Sheryl A. Horn, "External Control Variance Reduction Methods for Nonstationary Simulation Experimentation," Proceedings of the Winter Simulation Conference, Roberts, Banks, Schmeiser (eds), 1983, 341-343.

• Michael R. Taaffe and Gordon M. Clark, "Approximating Nonstationary Queueing Systems," Proceedings of the Winter Simulation Conference, Highland, Chao, Madrigal (eds), 1982, 9-13.

• Michael R. Taaffe, "Time-Dependent, Infinite-Server, General Queueing Networks," Industrial and Systems Engineering Seminar, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, February 28, 2002.
• Bevers, M., Flather, C.H., Taaffe, M.R., and Travis, L.E., "Spatially Explicit Markov Models for Designing Habitat Reserves," Systems Analysis Forestry Symposium Chile 2002, Punta de Tralca, Chile, March 5, 2002.
• Jin Wang, and Michael R. Taaffe, "Generating Daily Changes in Market Variables using a Multivariate Mixture of Normal Distributions," Winter Simulation Conference `01, Washington, DC, December 10, 2001.
• Michael R. Taaffe, "Time-Dependent, Infinite-Server, General Queueing Networks," Operations Research Colloquium, Penn State University, University Park, PA, November 12, 2001.

Professional Service and Recognition:

• President, INFORMS College on Simulation, 1998-2000
• Committee member: George B. Dantzig Dissertation Award - 1998, 1999. The George B. Dantzig Award is given for the best dissertation in any area of operations research and the management sciences that is innovative and relevant to practice. This award has been established to encourage academic research that combines theory and practice and stimulates greater interaction between doctoral students (and their advisors) and the world of practice. The award is given at the INFORMS Fall National Meeting.
• AWARD of MERIT, Institute of Industrial Engineers, 1998
• Director, Operations Research Division of The Institute of Industrial Engineers, 1997-1998
• Vice President, INFORMS College on Simulation, 1996-1998
• Vice Director, Operations Research Division of The Institute of Industrial Engineers, 1996-1997
• Committee member 1990-1991; chair, 1992, 1993 of the George Nicholson Prize Committee. The George Nicholson Student Paper Competition is held each year to honor outstanding papers in the field of operations research and the management sciences written by a student, usually a paper eminating from a Ph.D. student's dissertation. The prize is given each year at the INFORMS Spring National Meeting.
• National Science Foundation, Design, Manufacture, and Industrial Innovation Division, research grant, 1993-96
• National Science Foundation, Design, Manufacture, and Industrial Innovation Division, frequent Review Panel Member
• National Science Foundation, TQO program reviewer
• National Science Foundation, Presidential Faculty Fellow Review Panel member
• Winter Simulation Conference, frequent track coordinator
• INFORMS conferences, simulation cluster chair 1996-1998
• INFORMS Applied Probability Society, frequent Conference-session/track coordinator
• INFORMS Applied Probability Society, Council Member, 1989-92
• Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award, second place, School of Industrial Engineering, Purdue University, 1988-1989

• Awarded Certificate of Marriage, State of Michigan, July 31, 1993, Laurel E. Travis, Ph.D. - co-recipient
• Kid₁ - Ian Travis Taaffe - born 9/1/94, Pictures updated on October 22, 2004.
• Kid₂ - Maura Helen Taaffe - born 6/5/97, Pictures updated on October 22, 2004.

Some past editorial appointments:

• Area editor for Simulation, INFORMS Journal on Computing
• Associate editor, Operations Research
• Associate editor, Operations Research Letters
• Associate editor, INFORMS Journal on Computing
• Associate editor,IIE Transactions on Simulation
• Associate Editor IIE Transactions on Operations Engineering
• Editor, INFORMS Applied Probability Newsletter, 1989-92

• WSC '07 37^rd Winter Simulation Conference 2007, Washington, DC, December 9 - 12, 2007.
• INFORMS Annual Conference, Seattle, Washington, November 4 - 7, 2007.
• 14^th INFORMS Applied Probability Conference, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, July 9 - 11, 2007.
• Annual Industrial Engineering Conference and Research Conference  Nashville, TN,  May 19 - 23, 2007.
• Applied Probability Newsletter from the INFORMS College on Applied Probability
• INFORMS Career Opportunities  Operations Research (including simulation) job listings
• Simulation with Arena ^®., by W.D. Kelton, R.P. Sadowski, and D.A. Sadowski, McGraw-Hill, 1998
• Simulation Modeling and Analysis, 3rd edition, by A. Law and W.D. Kelton, McGraw-Hill, 2000,
• Discrete-Event System Simulation, 4^th ed., by J. Banks, J. Carson, B.L. Nelson, and D. Nicol, Prentice Hall, 2005
• Rockwell Software: ARENA Simulation
• Stochastic Modeling, Analysis and Simulation, by B.L. Nelson, McGraw-Hill, 1995
• Optimization in Operations Research, by R.L. Rardin, Prentice Hall, 1998
• Discrete Optimization, by G.L. Parker and R.L. Rardin, Academic Press, 1988
• Factory Physics, 2nd edition, by W. Hopp and M. Spearman, Irwin Press, Inc., 2000
• Introduction to Queueing Theory -- Second Edition, by Robert B. Cooper, Elsevier North Holland, Inc., 1981 (click here for the text in pdf format (zipped is 14 mb)).
• Stochastic-Process Limits: An Introduction to Stochastic-Process Limits and their Application to Queues, by Ward Whitt, Springer Series in Operations Research, 2002.
• Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore, Michigan
• Empire Dune at Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore, Michigan
• Beach at Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore, Michigan
• Live picture of Sleeping Bear Bay, Glen Arbor, Michigan
• Live picture of Columbus, Ohio
• Live picture of The Ohio State University
• Live picture of Chicago
• Live picture the Virginia Tech campus
• Currency Exchange Table
• Correct Time
• Taaffe's Castle, Carlingford, Ireland
• Taaffeite, the rarest mineral in the world (about)
• Taaffeite, the rarest mineral in the world (pictures)

ISE WWW HomePage

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Last revised: January 24, 2007