To some, Ivey Assistant Professor Joe Naoum-Sawaya's research sounds like science fiction: autonomous cars that predict where you are – and where you want to go – and can take you to your destination in a fast, cheap, and efficient way.
But it's happening, and it's happening fast, Naoum-Sawaya says.
His research focuses on the concept of mathematically modeling decision making. In other words, he strives to turn everyday decisions into mathematical representations so that technology can help us solve problems and reach solutions.
A big area of interest for Naoum-Sawaya is smarter mobility, where unstructured data like traffic footage, pollution, and individual travel patterns can all be analyzed when deciding how to get from one place to another.
“The main focus for my research is taking things that are very hard for a computer to analyze and creating mathematical models to make it easier for it to interpret,” he explained. “The goal is creating intelligent services that could optimize human behaviour and everything around us. We want to create services that would improve our way of life.”
