Community-Focused Problem-Solving With Operations Research And Analytics, Michael P. Johnson Jr.
Jan 2019
Community-Focused Problem-Solving With Operations Research And Analytics, Michael P. Johnson Jr.
Michael P. Johnson
In these days of ‘analytics’, ‘big data’ and ‘smart cities’, many of us are aware of the importance of data and quantitative analytic methods for program design, implementation and evaluation. Less commonly-understood are specific tools and methods for community-based interventions in which the problem to be solved is unclear, and the ways in which data of many different kinds can be used to develop interventions that represent best-possible uses of organization and community resources. Moreover, it is also less commonly-understood how to put communities, and community members, near the center of problem-solving and decision-making.
Examples of challenging problems include: How …
Strengthening The Profession Through Diversity And Inclusion-Related Research Within Or, Michael P. Johnson Jr.
Oct 2018
Strengthening The Profession Through Diversity And Inclusion-Related Research Within Or, Michael P. Johnson Jr.
Michael P. Johnson
Diversity, equity and inclusion are well-studied and widely-practiced areas in organization design, human resources and many areas of social sciences. However, the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines are somewhat newer to the notion of diversity, equity and inclusion as a way to improve professions and contribute to substantive research within component disciplines. This is especially true for operations research and the decision sciences. In this talk, given to an interdisciplinary audience of engineering professors, administrators and students, I provide an introduction to operations research, to diversity, equity and inclusion within STEM and OR specifically, ways that DEI might …
Community Operational Research: A Survey Of The Discipline, Michael P. Johnson Jr., Gerald Midgley, Jason D. Wright, George Chichirau
Sep 2018
Community Operational Research: A Survey Of The Discipline, Michael P. Johnson Jr., Gerald Midgley, Jason D. Wright, George Chichirau
Michael P. Johnson
Community operational research (COR) is an extension of multiple OR/MS traditions to support participatory research, localized impact and social change. It applies critical thinking, evidence-based policy analysis, community participation and decision modeling to local interventions. It emphasizes the needs, voices and values of disadvantaged and marginalized populations. It rests on a foundation of meaningful engagement with communities. This presentation summarizes a multi-year effort to assemble cutting-edge research in COR in a special issue of European Journal of Operational Research available August 2018. We review principles for community OR, describe the breadth and diversity of the field through the experience of …
Emerging Trends And New Frontiers In Community Operational Research, Michael P. Johnson Jr., Gerald Midgley, George Chichirau
Jul 2018
Emerging Trends And New Frontiers In Community Operational Research, Michael P. Johnson Jr., Gerald Midgley, George Chichirau
Michael P. Johnson
Community operational research (Community OR), and its disciplinary relation, community-based operations research, has an increasingly high profile within multiple domains that benefit from empirical and analytic approaches to problem solving. These domains are primarily concentrated within nonprofit services and local development. However, there are many other disciplinary and application areas for which novel applications and extensions of COR could generate valuable insights. This paper identifies a number of these, distinguishing between ‘emerging trends’ (mostly in well-studied areas of operations research, management science and analytics) and ‘new frontiers’, which can be found in traditions not commonly oriented towards empirical and analytic …
Course Syllabus: Honors 490 Mayor's Symposium: Housing In A Changing City, Michael P. Johnson Jr.
Dec 2017
Course Syllabus: Honors 490 Mayor's Symposium: Housing In A Changing City, Michael P. Johnson Jr.
Michael P. Johnson
This course provides students with an introduction to project-based and community-engaged learning through the subject of urban housing policy. The theme of this course is stabilizing and revitalizing Boston’s neighborhoods by increasing access to decent and affordable housing for all, with a focus on reducing incidence of eviction and displacement arising from gentrification and neighborhood change. Through readings, lectures, discussions, site visits and conversations with practitioners, scholars and advocates, students will acquire a comprehensive perspective on urban housing, and develop innovative projects to address important needs of Mayor Martin J. Walsh and the Mayor’s Housing Innovation Lab (https://tinyurl.com/ycnqgx8q). Small teams …
Community-Engaged Operations Research: Trends, New Frontiers And Current Applications, Michael P. Johnson Jr.
Nov 2017
Community-Engaged Operations Research: Trends, New Frontiers And Current Applications, Michael P. Johnson Jr.
Michael P. Johnson
Community-engaged operations research is an extension of multiple OR/MS traditions to support participatory scholarship, localized impact and social change. It applies critical thinking, evidence-based policy analysis, community participation and decision modeling to local interventions. It emphasizes the needs, voices and values of disadvantaged and marginalized populations. Through a survey of current scholarship in two complementary areas of inquiry, ‘community operational research’ (referring to work by primarily UK-based researchers) and ‘community-based operations research’ (referring to work by primarily US-based researchers), we develop principles for community-engaged OR, present critical questions that represent opportunities to expand the impact of this work, and discuss …
Improving Decision-Making Skills Of Nonprofit Professionals, Michael P. Johnson Jr., George Chichirau, Jason Wright
Oct 2017
Improving Decision-Making Skills Of Nonprofit Professionals, Michael P. Johnson Jr., George Chichirau, Jason Wright
Michael P. Johnson
Nonprofits face gaps in organizational capacity, including program design and evaluation, but previous research suggests that capacity-building exercises have a positive effect. We describe a data analytics training workshop with staff from Boston-area nonprofits reflecting a wide range of sectors. Through analysis of participant work on case studies provided by the instructor, we examine how participants made sense of training materials, the various strategies employed by participants to solve three case study problems, and participant feedback about the session. Our findings provide a basis for novel interventions in community based operations research.
Decision Modeling For Housing And Community Development: A Methodology For Evidence-Based Urban And Regional Planning, Michael P. Johnson Jr.
Aug 2017
Decision Modeling For Housing And Community Development: A Methodology For Evidence-Based Urban And Regional Planning, Michael P. Johnson Jr.
Michael P. Johnson
Urban community development corporations and other local institutions routinely face challenging problems in housing and economic development that require substantial expertise in data analytics and decision modeling. Recent research, inspired by local responses to the housing foreclosure crisis, and developed in cooperation with Boston-area CDCs, has resulted in a collection of applications that can assist CDCs and similar organizations to design local interventions for acquisition and redevelopment of housing. This paper describes these applications. The first of these is values and objective design, i.e. the process of identifying decision opportunities. The second of these is data analytics, or …
Decision Modeling For Housing And Community Development: #11;A Methodology For Evidence-Based Urban And Regional Planning, Michael P. Johnson Jr.
Nov 2016
Decision Modeling For Housing And Community Development: #11;A Methodology For Evidence-Based Urban And Regional Planning, Michael P. Johnson Jr.
Michael P. Johnson
Urban community development corporations and other local institutions routinely face challenging problems in housing and economic development that require substantial expertise in data analytics and decision modeling. While CDC employees have significant experience in diverse application areas, they often face limitations in acquiring, analyzing and sharing data, and using these data to solve decision problems whose solutions can generate novel strategies to address localized needs. Recent research, inspired by local responses to
the housing foreclosure crisis, and developed in cooperation with Boston‐area CDCs, has resulted in a collection of analytic methods and applications that can assist CDCs and similar organizations …
Smart Engagement: Planning And Decision-Making In Distressed Urban Neighborhoods, Justin Hollander, Michael P. Johnson Jr., Eliza D. Whiteman
Dec 2015
Smart Engagement: Planning And Decision-Making In Distressed Urban Neighborhoods, Justin Hollander, Michael P. Johnson Jr., Eliza D. Whiteman
Michael P. Johnson
This book addresses the challenges and opportunities associated with the use of decision science and information technologies to help stabilize and revitalize distressed urban communities in the United States.
While cities in the U.S. grow and decline at various rates and for different underlying reasons, neighborhoods within cities that have faced sustained demographic and socio-economic challenges over time may have multiple factors in common, such as physical blight, widespread vacancies, underserved and marginalized populations and, in some cases, local markets that do not respond to traditional economic development strategies. These distressed communities are often indicative of high levels of spatial …
Property Value Impacts Of Foreclosed Housing Acquisitions Under Uncertainty, Michael P. Johnson Jr., Senay Solak, Rachel B. Drew, Jeffrey Keisler
Aug 2013
Property Value Impacts Of Foreclosed Housing Acquisitions Under Uncertainty, Michael P. Johnson Jr., Senay Solak, Rachel B. Drew, Jeffrey Keisler
Michael P. Johnson
Community development corporations seek to stabilize neighborhoods affected by the recent foreclosure crisis through acquisition and redevelopment of distressed properties. One rationale for this work is the alleviation or avoidance of negative foreclosure impacts. We estimate the lost value to proximate properties associated with a single foreclosure through a Markov chain representing probabilistic transitions between foreclosure stages. We apply our model to a case study of foreclosure properties in Chelsea, MA. A rank ordering by estimated property value impacts indicates significant potential gains in social value as compared to current community development practice. We extend our basic model to address …
Uplifting: Improvements In Boston Area Client Well-Being, Ryan Kling, Lisa Kalimon, Tanya Stepasiuk, Bukola Usidame, Ryan Mclane, Ryan Whalen, Ana Maria Sanchez, Michael P. Johnson Jr.
Jun 2013
Uplifting: Improvements In Boston Area Client Well-Being, Ryan Kling, Lisa Kalimon, Tanya Stepasiuk, Bukola Usidame, Ryan Mclane, Ryan Whalen, Ana Maria Sanchez, Michael P. Johnson Jr.
Michael P. Johnson
LIFT-Boston, a local non-profit organization, entered into a collaborative partnership in September 2012 with McCormack Graduate School Public Policy Ph.D. students and faculty to develop and execute a research project. The goals of this endeavor were to assist LIFT-Boston in understanding the outcomes associated with its services and enable the organization to further pursue service goals.
The primary research questions respond to the organization’s most fundamental questions. These include how the organization’s unique service model impacts clients across several objective and subjective dimensions of well-being. Secondary questions focus on how these impacts may translate into increases or decreases in student …
Michael Johnson Research Profile, Michael P. Johnson Jr.
Apr 2012
Michael Johnson Research Profile, Michael P. Johnson Jr.
Michael P. Johnson
This document summarizes my disciplinary training and my research products.
