Jónas Oddur Jónasson

Jónas Oddur Jónasson has been awarded a Grand Challenges Explorations Grant in Innovations for Integrated Diagnostics Systems from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Grand Challenges is “a family of initiatives fostering innovation to solve key global health and development problems.” The challenge initiatives invite proposals twice a year and fosters collaboration and a growing network of research and funding partnerships for global impact. Jónasson’s proposal for Utawaleza - Rainbow Transport includes developing an algorithm using the daily numbers and locations of clinical samples needing transport between health centers and diagnostic laboratories to design optimal courier routes in low-resource settings, to lower costs and maximize the positive public health impact. He and his collaborators will test their system in Malawi, Africa. The grant award was announced on the Grand Challenges website.

Jónas Oddur Jónasson has won the INFORMS Institute for Operations Research and the Management Science (INFORMS) 2020/21 M&SOM (Manufacturing & Service Operations Management) Practice-Based Research Competition, which recognizes outstanding unpublished Operations Management research papers with a high potential or realized impact on practice.

Jónasson’s winning paper, “Redesigning Sample Transportation in Malawi Through Improved Data Sharing and Daily Route Optimization,” was co-authored with Emma Gibson (MIT ORC PhD student), Sarang Deo (Indian School of Business), Mphatso Kachule (Riders for Health Malawi), and Kara Palamountain (Kellogg School of Management).