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Carnegie Mellon Heinz School Policy Management Information Technology
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Michael P. Johnson 

Michael P. Johnson 

Associate Professor of Management Science and Urban Affairs
Ph.D, Operations Research, Northwestern University
email: johnson2@andrew.cmu.edu

Professional Background

Professor Johnson earned his doctorate from Northwestern University in 1997 with a dissertation titled: "An Optimization Model for Location of Subsidized Housing in Metropolitan Areas." He holds masters degrees in operations research from the University of California at Berkeley and in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from Morehouse College.

Professor Johnson is a member of the editorial board of Socio-Economic Planning Sciences and has co-edited Tutorials in Operations Research: Models, Methods and Applications for Innovative Decisionmaking, proceedings from the 2007 national conference of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), and Housing and Sustainable Community Development: Enhancing Minority Home Ownership, proceedings from the 1999 national meeting of the Conference of Minority Public Administrators.

Professor Johnson is a member of a number of professional societies, including INFORMS, the Regional Science Association and the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.

Professor Johnson has recently evaluated plans by the Pittsburgh Public Schools to open, close and resize public schools. He has also participated on studies of barriers to fair housing, produced a research agenda for environmental impacts of urban sprawl and assisted in development of a system to enable choice of high school programs for eighth-graders in an urban school district. Professor Johnson's previous professional experience includes consulting in logistics, operations management and information systems.

Research

Professor Johnson’s research addresses planning models for public-sector facility location and service delivery, with applications to subsidized/affordable housing and community development, elderly services and community corrections. Dr. Johnson also uses cost-benefit analysis to estimate impacts of public policies and information technology to design decision support systems. His primary mission is to develop quantitative methods that enable public organizations serving disadvantaged and vulnerable populations to jointly optimize economic efficiency, beneficial population outcomes and social equity.

His work has appeared in or is in press at a variety of journals, including Annals of Operations Research, Decision Support Systems, Environment and Planning A, Environment and Planning B, Housing Studies, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Geographic Systems, Journal of Housing Research, Location Science, Management Science, Papers of the Regional Science Association, and Socio-Economic Planning Sciences. His work has also appeared in refereed volumes including Encyclopedia of Gender and Information Technology, Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS): Advanced Geographic Information Systems and Sixth Industrial Engineering Research Conference Proceedings.

He is a current National Science Foundation CAREER Postdoctoral fellow, and has previously received postdoctoral fellowships from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Urban Scholars program and the National Consortium on Violence Research. He is an investigator on the project “Impact of Housing Relocation Initiatives on Community-Level Violence,” funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2005 – 2007.

Teaching

Professor Johnson currently teaches courses in Decision Support Systems, Operations Research, Cost-Benefit Analysis, and has supervised numerous capstone project courses in two Heinz School master’s degree programs (Systems Synthesis I, Systems Synthesis II, and Information Systems).

Community Service

Professor Johnson serves on the organizing committee for the 2006 national meeting of INFORMS in Pittsburgh. He currently serves as president of the Section on Location Analysis within INFORMS. Between 2002 – 2004, he initiated and co-directed the Carnegie Mellon University/Pitt Applied Decision Modeling Seminar Series. Professor Johnson has performed a variety of community service and outreach activities, including serving on the Pittsburgh Public Schools Committee on School Closings, directing a community planning process for Pittsburgh’s Highland Park neighborhood as a member of the Highland Park Community Development Corporation and serving on the advisory board for a social entrepreneurship initiative called Cyber-Lounge at Wilkinsburg. He also served as faculty advisor to CMU’s Black Graduate Student Organization in 2004 – 2005 and participated in Carnegie Mellon University Community Partnerships Working Group from 2004 - 2005. Publications
  1. Johnson, M.P. 2006. “Flexible Affordable Housing Policy Design with Scale Effects and Equity Objectives.” Under review at Management Science. Based on Heinz School Working Paper Series 2005-10; presented at 11th Manufacturing and Service Operations Management Conference, June 20, 2006, Atlanta, GA. [http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/johnson2/FlexibleModelsManagementScience08.pdf]
  2. Johnson, M.P. 2006. “Planning Models for Affordable Housing Development.” Based on Heinz School Working Papers Series 2003-20; Environment and Planning B, to appear. [http://www.heinz.cmu.edu/wpapers/detail.jsp?id=4851]
  3. Johnson, M.P. 2006. “Single-Period Location Models for Subsidized Housing: Project-Based Subsidies.” Based on Heinz School Working Paper Series 2002-44; Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, to appear. [http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/johnson2/SEPS_282_correctedproof.pdf]
  4. Johnson, M.P. 2006. Decision Models for Location of Community Corrections Centers. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 33(3): 393 – 412. [http://www.envplan.com/epb/abstracts/b33/b3125.html?id=4920]
  5. Johnson, M.P. 2005. Spatial Decision Support for Assisted Housing Mobility Counseling. Decision Support Systems 41(1): 296 - 312. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dss.2004.08.013]
  6. Caulkins, J.P., Feichtinger, G., Grass, D., Johnson, M.P., Tragler, G. and Y. Yegorov. 2005. Placing the Poor While Keeping the Rich in Their Place: Separating Strategies for Optimally Managing Residential Mobility and Assimilation. Demographic Research 13(1): 1 – 34. [http://www.demographic-research.org/Volumes/Vol13/1/13-1.pdf]
  7. Caulkins, J.P., Feichtinger, G., Johnson, M.P., Tragler, G. and Y. Yegorov. 2005. Skiba Thresholds in a Model of Controlled Migration. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 57(4) 490 - 508. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2005.04.008]
  8. Johnson, M.P., Gorr, W.L. and S. Roehrig. 2005. Location of Elderly Service Facilities. Annals of Operations Research 136(1): 329 – 349. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10479-005-2062-0]
  9. Zheng K., Padman R., Johnson M.P. and H.S. Diamond. 2005. Understanding Technology Adoption in Clinical Care: Clinician Adoption Behavior of a Point-of-Care Reminder System. International Journal of Medical Informatics 74(7 – 8): 535 – 543. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2005.03.007]
  10. Johnson, M.P. 2003. Single-Period Location Models for Subsidized Housing: Tenant-Based Subsidies. Annals of Operations Research 123: 105 – 124. [http://www.springerlink.com/link.asp?id=g467u11508h52603]
  11. Johnson, M.P. 2003. “Site Selection for Location of Community Corrections Centers.” Heinz School Working Paper Series 2002-43; under review at Justice Research and Policy. [http://www.heinz.cmu.edu/wpapers/detail.jsp?id=4314]
  12. Johnson, M.P. 2002. Decision Support for Family Relocation Decisions under the Section 8 Housing Assistance Program Using GIS and the Analytic Hierarchy Process. Journal of Housing Research 12(2): 277 – 306. [http://www.fanniemaefoundation.org/programs/jhr/pdf/jhr_1202_johnson.pdf]
  13. Johnson, M.P., Gorr, W.P., and S. Roehrig. 2002. Location/Allocation/Routing for Home-Delivered Meals Provision: Models & Solution Approaches. International Journal of Industrial Engineering 9(1): 45 - 56. [http://www.ijienet.org/Abstracts/Volume9/v9n1p5.htm]
  14. Johnson, M.P., Ludwig, J. and H. Ladd. 2002. The Benefits and Costs of Residential-Mobility Programs for The Poor. Housing Studies 17(1): 125 – 138. [http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/openurl.asp?genre=article&id=doi:10.1080/02673030120105947]
  15. Johnson, M.P. 2001. A Spatial Decision Support System Prototype for Housing Mobility Program Planning. Journal of Geographical Systems 3(1): 49 - 67. [http://www.springerlink.com/link.asp?id=9yc9mxe7nr1dgn6b]
  16. Johnson, M.P. 2001. Tenant-Based Subsidized Housing Location Planning Under Uncertainty. Socio-Economic Planning Sciences 35(3): 149-173. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0038-0121(01)00003-9]
  17. Johnson, M.P. 2001. Environmental Impacts of Urban Sprawl: A Survey of the Literature and Proposed Research Agenda. Environment and Planning A 33(4): 717 - 735. [http://www.envplan.com/epa/abstracts/a33/a3327.html]
  18. Gorr, W.P., Johnson, M.P. and S. Roehrig. 2001. Spatial Decision Support System for Home-Delivered Services. Journal of Geographical Systems 3(2): 181 - 197. [http://www.springerlink.com/link.asp?id=1vmm8nf3ux4d4d5h]
  19. Johnson, M.P. and A.P. Hurter. 2000. Decision Support for a Housing Relocation Program Using a Multi-Objective Optimization Model. Management Science 46(12): 1569 - 1584. [http://www.extenza-eps.com/extenza/loadHTML?objectIDValue=12077&type=abstract]
  20. Johnson, M.P. and A.P. Hurter. 1999. Economic Impacts of Subsidized Housing Relocation. Papers in Regional Science 78(3): 265 - 295. [http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1435-5597.1999.tb00745.x]
  21. Johnson, M. P. and A. P. Hurter. 1998. An Optimization Model for Location of Subsidized Housing in Metropolitan Areas. Location Science 6, 257 – 279. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0966-8349(98)00044-8]

Additional Web Resources

Professor Johnson's personal home page: http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/johnson2/home.html

Professor Johnson’s NSF CAREER home page: http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/johnson2/NSF_CAREER_Johnson.htm

Pittsburgh Housing e-Counselor: http://www.housing-ecounselor.org

Carnegie Mellon University/Pitt Applied Decision Modeling Seminar Series home page: http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/johnson2/AppliedOR.htm

Highland Park Community Plan: http://www.highlandparkpa.com/plan

Pittsburgh Public Schools Right-Sizing Plan: http://www.pps.k12.pa.us/finalrightsizingplan22806.asp