About
Dr Marion Penn is a Lecturer in Management Science at the University of Southampton. Her teaching responsibilities include being module leader for MANG1047 Managment Analysis, as well as teaching on other modules.
She is also the deputy to the Faculty of Social Sciences Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Lead.
Research
Research groups
Research interests
- Discrete-event simulation and system dynamics
- Mathematical optimisation techniques
- Impact modelling
- Qualitative OR (operational research) methods
- Healthcare
Current research
- Application of discrete-event simulation and system dynamics modelling particularly in healthcare interventions.
- Application of mathematical optimisation techniques within healthcare services.
- Evaluation of the impact modelling projects have on healthcare services.
- The application of qualitative OR methods particularly in combination with quantitative methods.
- Identifying ocurances of the prisoner's dilema in healthcare contexts and mitigating its impact.
Research projects
Active projects
Publications
Teaching
Using flipped learning and encourageing interaction in teaching sessions.
Using assessment to support learning.
Biography
Following a BSc. in Mathematics at Bristol University, Marion worked as a PCT Information Analyst and then as a Maths teacher, before taking a MSc. in OR at the University of Southampton.
Her MSc. dissertation applied System Dynamics to project demand for social services and considered possible interventions to manage local challenges. She received an Award for Excellence for this work. Her PhD. also at Southampton University, explored various aspects of hospital operating theatre scheduling. This included applying multi-objective mixed integer programming, to the development of master theatre timetables and using Discrete Event Simulation to compare the effects of using a wide range of booking algorithms for the scheduling of individual operations.
After a couple of years working as a Teaching Fellow in OR, she is enjoying a returning to applied health care problems in NIHR CLAHRC Wessex. Her research interests are applying simulation and linear/integer programming and qualitative OR methods such as cognitive mapping and influence diagrams, in healthcare. She is particularly interested in projects combining mixtures of these methods to the same problem and the additional insight that this generates.