Profile
Dr Sara Hatami is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Management at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya BarcelonaTech. Her academic work sits at the intersection of industrial engineering, operations research and data-informed decision making, developing practical optimisation approaches for complex production, logistics and service systems with a consistent focus on efficiency, sustainability and real-world implementation.
Research journey
Her research journey began in industrial engineering, where she developed a strong foundation in production systems and operational decision making. She completed an MSc in Industrial Engineering at Qazvin Azad University in Iran in 2009, and later pursued doctoral research at the Universitat Politècnica de València, earning a PhD in Industrial Engineering and Production in 2016. Her doctoral thesis, The Distributed and Assembly Scheduling Problem, examined advanced scheduling challenges in distributed manufacturing environments.
Following her doctorate, Dr Hatami expanded her work through research and knowledge-transfer activity at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya from 2016 to 2022. This stage broadened her research from manufacturing scheduling to connected challenges in transportation, supply chains, smart mobility and technology-enabled operations, contributing to public and private research and transfer projects that link academic models with problems faced by organisations and industry.
Research contribution and impact
At UPC BarcelonaTech, her work continues to connect rigorous optimisation with contemporary management questions. Her research includes heuristics and metaheuristics, simulation-based optimisation, distributed scheduling, sustainable transportation, green and hybrid fleets, supply-chain planning, energy communities and business analytics — exploring how mathematical models and intelligent algorithms can improve decisions under uncertainty and operational constraints.
Dr Hatami’s publications reflect a progression from specialist production scheduling toward wider applications of analytics and optimisation, addressing how organisations can coordinate resources, reduce operational inefficiencies and make more sustainable decisions across manufacturing, logistics, transportation, energy and service operations.
Areas of expertise
- Operations research and optimisation
- Production and assembly scheduling
- Supply-chain and logistics analytics
- Sustainable transportation and mobility
- Simulation and metaheuristics
- Energy communities and smart operations
Academic milestones
- 2009MSc in Industrial Engineering, Qazvin Azad University, Iran
- 2016PhD in Industrial Engineering and Production, Universitat Politècnica de València
- 2016–2022Research and knowledge transfer, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
- CurrentAssistant Professor, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya BarcelonaTech
In the network
With more than 18 research publications and a Google Scholar h-index of 13, Dr Hatami has established a focused record in industrial engineering and management research, demonstrating how optimisation, simulation and analytics can move beyond theory to support resilient, sustainable and better-performing operational systems.
Bibliometric values change over time; figures verified September 2026 from Google Scholar.
