Center of Risk and Decision Analysis (CORDA)

Dr. Eyjolfur Ingi Asgeirsson graduated from Columbia University with a Ph.D.  in Operations Research in 2007 — his thesis: On the performance of simple algorithms for solving NP-hard problems. 

Other academic degrees: M.Sc. Operations Research, Columbia University, 2002.  B.Sc. Computer Science, University of Iceland, 1999. C.Sc. Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Iceland, 1998. 
Dr. Asgeirsson is from Jan 2007 an Assistant Professor at Reykjavík University, School of Science and Engineering.

Teaching at Reykjavik University: Undergraduate Courses: Introduction to Operations Research, Operations Research II, Programming (c++). Masters Level Courses: Optimization Methods, Optimization Applications.He is also a lecturer at Reykjavík University, School of Business.

Other Work Experience:  Programmer & Software Designer, AGR, Reykjavík, Iceland. Jan 1999 – Sep 2000, May 2001 – Sep 2001, 2003 – 2007. Consulting projects: 2007–present. Programmer & Data analyst, Calidris Ldt, Reykjavík, Iceland. Jun 2002 – Sep 2002. Database Programmer, US Army Base, Keflavík, Iceland. Jun 1996 – Sep 1996, Jun 1997 – Sep 1997.

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Dr. Hlynur Stefansson graduated with a PhD in Engineering from Imperial College London in 2007.

Other academic degrees: MSc in Informatics (Engineering), Institute for Mathematical Modeling, Technical University of Denmark, 2001.  Faculty of Engineering, University of Iceland, BSc in Mechanical- and Industrial Engineering, 1996-1999.

Academic Appointments: Department of Financial Engineering and Engineering Management, School of Science and Engineering, Reykjavik University, Assistant Professor, 2007 onwards. Department of Financial Engineering and Engineering Management, School of Science and Engineering, Reykjavik University, Head of department, 2007-2011. Centre for Process Systems Engineering, Imperial College London, Teaching and Research assistant, 2004-2006.

Teaching at Reykjavik University: Operations Research I, Operations Research II,  Practical Operations Research and Simulation.

Among academic qualifications are:  Author of peer-reviewed publications in scientific journals, conference proceedings and book chapters on the subjects of sustainable transportation, production planning and scheduling, operations research and geothermal energy production.Dr. Stefansson has received research grants from the Research Council of Iceland, Reykjavik Energy Research Fund, the Royal Academy of Engineering (UK), British Overseas Research Students Awards Scheme and Reykjavik University Development fund.

Dr. Stefansson's current research focuses on:  Simulation and energy models for the implementation of electric transportation in Iceland.  Models for optimization of strategies for sustainable utilization of geothermal resources.  Methods for data-driven decision making and discovery of knowledge.  Simulation models for studying Financial instability, credit rationing and business cycles in the Icelandic economy.  Automated forecasting, planning and scheduling for manufacturing companiesOther activities:  Member of the Icelandic Geothermal Research Group (GEORG) (http://georg.hi.is/).  Associate member of The Energy Futures Lab, Imperial College London, 2009 onwards. (http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/energyfutureslab ).  President of the Icelandic Operations Research Society.

Dr. Pall Jensson was a Professor of Industrial Engineering at the University of Iceland 1987-2011 until joining Reykjavik University in 2011, where he is now a professor and department head of Engineering Management and Financial Engineering.

He holds a PhD degree in Industrial Engineering from the Technical University of Denmark 1975. He was employed by IBM 1975-1977 and director of Computing Center at the University of Iceland 1977-1987. 

Professor Jensson has a long experience of Operational Research and Mathematical Modeling of various economical and technical applications including Profitability Assessment and Risk Analysis. He has been active in teaching and research in Industrial Engineering since 1977.

Dr. Sverrir Olafsson is a Professor in Financial Engineering at the School of Science and Engineering at Reykjavik University and an Honorary Visiting Professor in the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science at Queen Mary University, London. He is also on the board of directors of Riskcon Ltd, a UK based risk management consultancy and holds a consulting CTO position at Frequencier a start-up in novel and dynamic spectrum access technologies.

Previously he was a Chief Researcher at BT Research and held academic positions at The Mathematical Departments of Kings College London; UMIST Manchester and the University of Southampton before taking up his present position at Reykjavik University. 

At BT Dr Olafsson managed large long-term research team that worked mainly on interference management in wireless systems. 

Dr Olafsson is the author of close to 100 refereed academic papers on mathematical physics, neural networks, communications networks, game theory, risk management and fixed income analysis. He is also the co-author of four patents in the area of wireless communications and the co-author (with Eric Chin and Dian Nel) of a four volume work on Mathematical Finance to be published by John Wiley.

Dr. Olafsson has been a key note speaker at numerous international conferences and seminars and is on the editorial board of three international journals. He has provided an extensive consultancy to corporations and financial institutions on strategic modelling and financial risk management and given training courses to corporate finance specialists.

In the last five years his main teaching has been in MSc courses on Risk Management, Fixed Income, and Mathematical Finance, including Probability Theory and Stochastic Processes. 

Dr Olafsson has a PhD in mathematical physics from the University of Karlsruhe and an MSc, also in mathematical physics, from the University of Tübingen

Dr. Thorgeir Palsson assumed the position of Professor of Air Navigation Technology at Reykjavik University´s School of Science and Engineering in June of 2010 where he is currently engaged as professor emeritus in research and development activity relating to air transport and air navigation.  

From 2007 to 2010 he served as the Chief Executive of Isavia, a state-owned company that was established to take over all service provision that had previously been provided by the Icelandic Civil Aviation Administration (ICAA). Prior to this engagement he had served as the Director General of Civil Aviation, a position that he assumed in 1992.  In this capacity he has been active in all aspects of aviation including air navigation service provision in the North Atlantic, airport operations in Iceland as well as safety regulation of civil aircraft and air transport operations.

Dr. Thorgeir Palsson earned his S.B., S.M. and Sc.D. degrees in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1966, 1967 and 1971 respectively.  His area of specialization was in the design of automatic control and guidance systems.  Subsequently he worked for four years as a research engineer at The Analytic Sciences Corporation of Reading, Mass. on the analysis and design of inertial and satellite navigation systems. In particular he worked on the development of estimation techniques based on Kalman filtering for integrating external measurements for improving the performance of  autonomous navigation systems. In 1976 he became associate professor of Systems Engineering in the Engineering Department of the University of Iceland and full professor in 1986. During this period he gave courses on the design of automatic control systems and the theory and application of stochastic systems including optimal estimation and Kalman filtering. He also gave a course on navigations systems and their application in aviation and marine navigation.

At the University of Iceland Dr. Palsson established the Systems Engineering Laboratory in 1979 and served as its director until 1992 when he became Director General of Civil Aviation.  Under his leadership the Systems Engineering Laboratory undertook the development of Air Traffic Managment computer systems for the Reykjavik Area Control Center (RACC).  This lead to the establishment by the ICAA and the University of Iceland of TERN Systems Inc. in 1997, that took over this development role.  TERN Systems has successfully developed most of the automation systems currently used by the RACC for providing air traffic control services in the North Atlantic Region.

Dr. Palsson has authored a number of technical papers and articles on air navigation technology and related subjects. In addition to his administrative duties he was responsible for initiating and coordinating various research and development activities that were carried out by the Icelandic Civil Aviation Administration and Isavia in the period between 1992 and 2010. During this period he also gave numerous lectures and presentations on technical subjects related to air traffic management and served in various bodies addressing technical and policy issues relevant to international civil aviation.  After returning to academic duties in 2010 he has been establishing a research program in the area of systems engineering supported by Isavia and Icelandair. In particular he has been thesis advisor to a number of Master´s students who have been working on topics such as the integration of navigation systems, reliability of air traffic management systems, optimization of flight trajectories for jet transport aircraft and the performance of air traffic control systems. He has also been a participant of a research team that has been promoting new methods for improving the accuracy of forecasts of VA concentrations for the benefit of aviation and civil defence activites during volcanic eruptions.

Dr. Thordur Vikingur Fridgeirsson is a Mechanical and Business Engineer with longtime experience as a professional manager, project manager, entrepreneur and academic person. He has been the management consultant of many private and public agencies.  As an Assistant Professor at Reykjavik University his main research and teaching work is on public projects addressing project management, risk assessment and decision analysis theories. Dr. Fridgeirsson is among few Icelanders holding a B Certification from IPMA (International Project Management Association).

Dr. Fridgeirsson has participated in seed projects and entrepreneurial work for years both as ad hoc project manager, consultant, instructor and company founder. Thordur Vikingur has written three textbooks on management and more than 400 published articles. Thordur Vikingur also conducts regularly radio programs on subjects of social interests such as management, crisis, economics, finance, business ethics and documentaries on academic topics.