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Jonathan Thompson

Dr Jonathan Thompson

Head of School

School of Mathematics

Email
ThompsonJM1@cardiff.ac.uk
Telephone
+44 29208 75524
Campuses
Abacws, Room 3.13, Senghennydd Road, Cathays, Cardiff, CF24 4AG
Users
Available for postgraduate supervision

Overview

My research interests include graphic theoretic modelling, meta-heuristics (particularly ant systems, genetic algorithms and simulated annealing) and scheduling problems (examination scheduling, sports fixture scheduling and manpower planning).

Research group

Administrative duties

  • Head of School
  • Year Three Director of Studies
  • Chair of School Board 

Publication

2024

2022

2021

2020

2018

2017

2016

2015

2012

2011

2010

2009

2007

2005

2000

Articles

Book sections

Conferences

Research

External funding since 2000

  • Two projects with The Office of National Statistics to investigate the Cell Suppression Problem (2005 and 2006).

Major conference talks since 2004

  • 2007 – The Operational Research Society Conference, Edinburgh, UK – The Dynamic Vehicle Routing Problem
  • 2006 – The Operational Research Society Conference, Bath, UK – GRASP for the nurse scheduling problem
  • 2004 - Combinatorial Optimisation, Lancaster, UK - Ants for graph colouring

Teaching

Undergraduate - Autumn semester

  • Year Three - Optimisation

Postgraduate - Autumn semester

  • MSc - Operational Research and Analytics

Postgraduate students

Graduated (since 2000)

  • Nick Pugh - Ants for Examination Timetabling (2004)
  • David Parr - A comparison of solution methods for the nurse scheduling problem (2004)
  • Steven Casey - A comparison of methods for the examination timetabling problem (2005)
  • Max Wallace - The Dynamic Vehicle Routing Problem (2007)
  • Melissa Goodman - Construction-Based Metaheuristics for Personnel Scheduling problems (2008)
  • Vicky Reynish - An Investigation into the University Timetabling Problem (2008)
  • Penny Holborn - Optimisation Method for Dynamic Operational Research Problems (2013)
  • Lisa Taylor
  • Bradley Hardy
  • Wasin Padungwech

Current

  • Sebastien Pierre
  • Monique Sciortino

Biography

Previous positions

  • Lecturer in Statistics and Operational Research, Edinburgh University, 1996-7
  • Research Assistant,  Swansea University, 1994-6.

Other projects

Dr Jonathan Thompson has also completed projects with several companies including WH Smiths, John Menzies and the International Rugby Board. He  is an active researcher in the areas of heuristics, and particularly in timetabling, manpower planning and scheduling. He has recently extended his research to vehicle routing problems and in particular, real time routing. He is currently a member of the organising committee of the OR49 conference held in Edinburgh this September. He has organised several streams on scheduling at OR conferences. He is on the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Operational Research and on the Programme Committee for several conferences such as GECCO, PPSN and PATAT.