Isa Bar-on

Biography

Education: BS Hebrew University of Jerusalem 1974 MS Hebrew University of Jerusalem 1977 PhD Hebrew University of Jerusalem 1984 My favorite activities involve guiding students in projects and research. I like to give them independence and to learn from their work. I enjoy challenging them and myself to find better answers, explanations, and solutions. I am very interested in socio-technical systems, such as the healthcare system or the energy delivery system. Over the past years, my research has focused on developing models in support of an improved healthcare delivery system. To this end, I co-founded the Healthcare Delivery Institute (HDI) at WPI, with faculty members from the business school, and from computer science. HDI is an interdisciplinary research institute working with several clinical partners. We apply technology, analysis and modeling to improve the healthcare system. For example, we are modeling how to best deploy providers to improve access to mental care for veterans, or how to deploy resources to best treat stroke patients, both in cooperation with the Veterans Health Administration. I am using similar tools to evaluate the use of alternative energy considering the resource use in their deployment.

Research Interest

Healthcare delivery; System modeling; System dynamics; Cost modeling; Alternative Energy