Selene Silvestri, PhD
Research Scientist MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics
- Boston MA
Dr. Silvestri's research leverages optimization and data-driven analytics to enhance supply chain network design and warehouse operations.
MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics
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Biography
Dr. Silvestri received her Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Salerno, Italy. During her Ph.D., she was a Visiting Student at the Interuniversity Research Center on Enterprise Networks, Logistics and Transportation (CIRRELT) in Montréal, Canada. Following her doctoral studies, Dr. Silvestri was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the École des Hautes Études Commerciales (HEC) Montréal, affiliated with the Institute for Data Valorisation (IVADO) and the Interuniversity Research Center on Enterprise Networks, Logistics and Transportation (CIRRELT). Before joining MIT, she worked as a Pre-Sales Technical Consultant in Optimization at FICO.
Research Focus
Intelligent & Autonomous Supply Chains
AI-driven, data-centric, and increasingly autonomous decision systems for supply chain planning and execution.
Supply Chain Strategy & Network Architecture
Designing the structural configuration and competitive positioning of supply networks.
Areas of Expertise
Education
Università degli Studi di Salerno
PhD
Mathematics and Computer Science
2016
Università degli Studi di Salerno
MS
Mathematics
2012
Università degli Studi di Salerno
BS
Mathematics
2010
Languages
- Italian
- English
Media Appearances
Uptime: Dr. Selene Silvestri
TAPPI Podcast Network online
2026-06-02
Our guest for this episode is Dr. Selene Silvestri, a research scientist at the MIT CTL in the Intelligent Logistics Systems Lab. Silvestri's current research addresses supply chain network design and optimization, to help companies improve decision-making in their supply chain.
Episode 378: Reducing environmental impact of e-commerce packaging
Postal Hub Podcast online
2025-08-05
Dr Selene Silvestri, Research Scientist at the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, discusses the environmental impact of e-commerce packaging..
How Amazon dominated the e-commerce market
WHYY online
2024-06-28
According to Selene Silvestri, a research scientist at the MIT Center of Transportation and Logistics, the answer is how Amazon has developed their supply chain, the giant, finely oiled machine that moves goods across the globe, from manufacturers to our front doors.
Speaking Engagements/Featured Conversations
Operations Research: From Academia to Practice, Selene Silvestri
In this talk, Selene Silvestri shares her journey of bridging theoretical and practical solutions leveraging Operations Research, demonstrating how incorporating human-in-the-loop analytics has been essential for transitioning analytical models into effective real-world applications. Watch full talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IYwq5XW44I
Research Papers
Roads Before Routes: Algorithmic Design of Networks with Target Travel Impedance
MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics Research PaperSteven Parks, Selene Silvestri, Matthias Winkenbach
2025-10-17
Road network design affects transportation efficiency, accessibility, and individual travel choice. However, isolating the influence of network structure through systematic, reproducible experiments remains elusive due to the complexity and limited variation of real-world networks. This work introduces a novel methodology for the rapid generation of stylized road networks with specified travel impedances, ensuring that travel distances and times realistically reflect those of actual cities. Our framework integrates two complementary graph generation algorithms that quickly produce networks with scale of mid-sized cities. We further propose extensions that allow users to fine-tune additional aspects of network structure.
Going the Extra Mile -- by Design: Generating Road Networks with Target Values of Travel Impedance Via Bi-Level Optimization
MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics Research PaperSteven Parks, Selene Silvestri, Matthias Winkenbach
2025-06-13
The inherent characteristics of a road network impact transportation system design, performance, and user behavior. However, systematically evaluating their impacts on vehicle routing, facility location, and other transportation decisions is challenging. In this work, we propose a methodology to generate stylized road networks that satisfy user-defined values of average network circuity and inefficiency, two graph characteristics that, respectively, describe the closeness of spatial locations in terms of shortest travel distance and time. We refine an exact solution approach consisting of two novel bi-level mixed-integer Road Network Design Problems solved in succession.
Optimizing access to drinking water in remote areas. Application to Nepal
Computers & Operations ResearchGilbert Laporte, Marie-Ève Rancourt, Jessica Rodríguez-Pereira, Selene Silvestri
2022-04-01
This study is motivated by the need to restore part of the Nepal water distribution network that was destroyed by the Gorkha and Dolakha earthquakes in April and May 2015. The problem consists of two hierarchical subproblems: locating water taps to ensure a good coverage of the population, and connecting these water taps to water sources by means of a pipe distribution network. Both subproblems are subject to a variety of accessibility and technical constraints that make the problem unique and highly complex. Namely, because Nepal is highly mountainous, elevations must be taken into account in the distance calculations, and the distribution network is gravity-fed, meaning that pumps are not used.
Collaborative prepositioning network design for regional disaster response
Production and Operations ManagementBurcu Balcik, Selene Silvestri, Marie‐Ève Rancourt, Gilbert Laporte
2019-10-01
We present a collaborative prepositioning strategy to strengthen the disaster preparedness of the Caribbean countries, which are frequently hit by hurricanes. Since different subsets of countries are affected in each hurricane season, significant risk pooling benefits can be achieved through horizontal collaboration, which involves joint ownership of prepositioned stocks. We worked with the intergovernmental Caribbean Disaster and Emergency Management Agency to design a collaborative prepositioning network in order to improve regional response capacity. We propose a novel insurance‐based method to allocate the costs incurred to establish and operate the proposed collaborative prepositioning network among the partner countries.
A branch-and-cut algorithm for the minimum branch vertices spanning tree problem
Computers & Operations ResearchSelene Silvestri, Gilbert Laporte, Raffaele Cerulli
2017-05-01
Given a connected undirected graph
the Minimum Branch Vertices Problem (MBVP) asks for a spanning tree of G with the minimum number of vertices having degree greater than two in the tree. These are called branch vertices. This problem, with applications in the context of optical networks, is known to be NP-hard. We model the MBVP as an integer linear program, with undirected variables, we derive valid inequalities and we prove that some of these are facet defining. We then develop a hybrid formulation containing undirected and directed variables. Both models are solved with branch-and-cut. Comparative computational results show the superiority of the hybrid formulation.
Awards
Best Paper Award, Humanitarian Operations & Crisis Management Track
Issued by Production and Operation Management Society POMS College of Humanitarian Operations & Crisis Management
Jan 2019
Best Applied Contribution in Operational Research
Issued by Spanish Society of Statistics and Operational Research (SEIO) – BBVA Foundation
Jan 2022
