Tamar Cohen-Hillel

Assistant Professor at UBC Sauder.


I am an Assistant Professor at the Operations & Logistics Division at the University of British Columbia, Sauder School of Business.

I am interested in research in the field of Retail Operations Management, including retail logistics, dynamic pricing, and consumer behavior learning and modeling.

My research is influenced by my industrial collaborators, including, Amazon, Zara, Oracle Retail Group, Marvell Technology Group, and Teva Pharmaceuticals.

I received my Ph.D. in Operations Research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, under the supervission of Professor Georgia Perakis.

Prior to joining UBC Sauder, I spent a year as a postdoctoral research scientist at Modeling and Optimization group at Amazon.

I received an M.Sc. degree with summa cum laude in Information Management Engineering, and a B.Sc. degree in Industrial Engineering both from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology.

My CV can be found here.

Research Interests

My research interest is focused on developing analytical tools, such as optimization, and mathematical modeling, as well as statistics and machine learning and behavioral observations for high impact problems in the areas of Operational Management and Revenue Management, such as dynamic pricing and logistics.

Publications

Published

    Cohen-Hillel, T. and Yedidsion, L., 2018, The Periodic Joint Replenishment Problem is Strongly NP-Hard, Mathematics of Operations Research, 43(4), pp.1269-1289.
    • First place in Rothblum Award - ORSIS Prize for Excellence in Research in OR (2016).
    Baardman, L., Borjian Boroujeni, S., Cohen-Hillel, T., Panchamgam, K. and Perakis, G., 2018, Detecting Customer Trends for Optimal Promotion Targeting, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management.
    • First place in POMS College of Supply Chain Management Best Student Paper Award (2019).
    • Honorable mention in in MSOM Practice-Based Paper Competition (2019).
    • Finalist in INFORMS Service Science Best Service Science Paper Award (2019).
    • Finalist in POMS-JD.com Best Data-Driven Research Paper Competition (2019).
    • Finalist in INFORMS Social Media Analytics Section Best Student Paper Award (2019).

Accepted

In Progress

    Cohen-Hillel, T., Panchamgam, K. and Perakis, G., Bounded Memory Peak End Models Can be Surprisingly Good, soon to be submitted.
    • Finalist in POMS College of Behavior in Operations Management Junior Scholar Working Paper Competition (2019).
    • First place in INFORMS Service Science Best Service Science Paper Award (2018).
    Cohen-Hillel, T. Perakis, G. Spantidakis, I. and Thayaparan, L. P. G., SAFE - Supervised Approach for Feature Engineering, work in progress.
    Cohen-Hillel, T. Moran-Pelaez, M. and Perakis, G., Optimal Product Replacement soon to be submitted.
    Cezik, T. Cohen-Hillel, T. and Y. and Yedidsion, L., Labor Planning for Last-mile Delivery, work in progress.

Honors and Awards

  • 2022: Nomination for the GCUS teaching excellence award
  • 2019: First place in POMS College of Supply Chain Management Best Student Paper Award.
  • 2019: Honorable mention in in MSOM Practice-Based Paper Competition.
  • 2019: Finalist in INFORMS Service Science Best Service Science Paper Award.
  • 2019: Finalist in INFORMS Social Media Analytics Section Best Student Paper Award.
  • 2019: Finalist in POMS-JD.com Best Data-Driven Research Paper Competition.
  • 2019: Finalist in POMS College of Behavior in Operations Management Junior Scholar Working Paper Competition.
  • 2019: Nomination for the Goodwin Medal for outstanding TA.
  • 2018: First place in INFORMS Service Science Best Cluster Paper Competition.
  • 2016: First place in Rothblum Award - ORSIS Prize for Excellence in Research in OR.

Talks and Presentations

Invited Talks

    Baardman, L., Borjian Boroujeni, S., Cohen-Hillel, T., Panchamgam, K., Perakis, G., (2019, January). Customer-trends for Personalized Demand Estimation and Targeted Promotions. Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Israel.
    Cohen, T., Panchamgam, K., and Perakis, G., (2018, October) High-Low Promotion Policies for Peak End Demand Models, Young Researchers Workshop Cornell ORIE 2018.
    Cohen, T., Panchamgam, K., and Perakis, G., (2018, April) Peak-End Demand Models and their Impact on Promotion Planning Problems, MIT Sloan School of Management.
    Cohen, T., and Yedidsion, L., (2016, January). NP-Hardness Proof for Joint Replenishment Problem. Computer Science Department, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Israel.

Conferences

  • Cezik, T. Cohen-Hillel, T. and Y. and Yedidsion, L., Labor Planning for Last-mile Delivery
    • 2021 INFORMS Annual Conference.

    • Cohen-Hillel, T., Panchamgam, K., and Perakis, G., High-Low Promotion Policies for Peak-End Demand Models.
      • 2019 Manufacturing & Services Operation Management Conference in Singapore.
      • 2019 Revenue Management & Pricing Conference in Palo Alto, California.
      • 2019 POMS Annual Conference in Washington, D.C.
    • Cohen-Hillel, T., Panchamgam, K., and Perakis, G., On the Power of Bounded Memory Peak End Demand Models.
      • 2019 POMS Annual Conference in Washington, D.C.
      • 2018 INFORMS Annual Conference in Houston, Texas.
    • Cohen-Hillel, T., Panchamgam, K., and Perakis, G., Peak-End Demand Models and their Impact on Promotion Optimization Problems.
      • 2018 Manufacturing & Services Operation Management Conference in Dallas, Texas.
      • 2018 Revenue Management & Pricing Conference in Toronto, Canada.
      • 2017 INFORMS Annual Conference in Houston, Texas.
    • Baardman, L., Borjian Boroujeni, S., Cohen-Hillel, T., Panchamgam, K., Perakis, G., Customer-trends for Personalized Demand Estimation and Targeted Promotions.
      • 2019 Manufacturing & Services Operation Management Conference in Singapore.
      • 2019 POMS Annual Conference in Washington, D.C.
      • 2018 Manufacturing & Services Operation Management Conference in Dallas, Texas.
      • 2017 INFORMS Annual Conference in Houston, Texas.
      • 2017 Manufacturing & Services Operation Management Conference in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
    • Cohen-Hillel, T., and Yedidsion, L., NP-Hardness Proof for Joint Replenishment Problem.
      • 2016 INFORMS Annual Meeting 2016 in Nashville, Tennessee.
    • Cohen, T., and Yedidsion, L., Minimize the Flow Time of Multi Stages Jobs on Multi-Purpose Machines.
      • 2015 19th Industrial Engineering and Management Conference in Tel Aviv, Israel
    • Cohen, T., and Yedidsion, L., Assigning Employees to Vacations with Additional Constraints.
      • 2014 18th Industrial Engineering and Management Conference in Tel Aviv, Israel

Teaching Experience

UBC Sauder

  • COMM 204 Logistics and Operations Management - Term 2 2021

MIT

  • 15.730 Data, Models, and Decisions - Spring 2017, 2018, 2019 (TA)

Technion, Israel Institute of Technology

  • 97211 Fault Tolerant Networks Protocols - Spring 2012, 2013 (TA)
  • 96260 Advanced Topic in Information Systems - Winter 2013 (TA)
  • 94210 Introduction to Computer Technologies - Spring 2014, 2015 (TA)
  • 94223 Data Structures and Algorithms - Winter 2014, 2015 (TA)
  • 96326 Introduction to Scheduling - Winter 2014 (TA)
  • 94142 Operation of Production Service Systems - Spring 2015 (TA)

ASAT- Technion Student Association

  • Pre-test Preparation Class - Winter, Spring 2008, 2009, 2010 (Instructor)
  • Pre-college Preparation Class - Summer 2010 (Instructor)

Work Experience

Amazon (July 2020 - August 2021)

Postdoctoral Research Scientist

Teva Pharmaceuticals (July 2013 - November 2013)

Programmer for consultation project for Teva Pharmaceuticals.

Intel Corporation (February 2010 - January 2013)

System admin, customer side developer.

Contact

Address
Tamar Cohen-Hillel
Room 472
2053 Main Mall
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2, Canada

Email
tamar.cohen-hillel at sauder dot ubc dot ca