Maria Battarra is a Senior Lecturer in Management Science at the University of Bath, School of Management. In 2010, she obtained a PhD from the University of Bologna in Operational Research and she specialized in the study of combinatorial optimisation problems.  Her research mainly focuses on developing innovative exact and metaheuristic algorithms for real world applications, including but not limited to vehicle routing problems, scheduling problems, disaster relief management, and maritime logistics. Her research has been published in prestigious international journals such as Operations Research, Transportation Science, Naval Research Logistics, Networks, International Journal of Production Research, Computers & Operations Research, and European Journal of Operational Research.