Open PhD Defence Chesmeh Chamani

Chesmeh's open PhD defence

We are pleased to invite you to the public defence of Fatemeh Besharati Moghaddam's doctoral dissertation on “𝘐𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘖𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘪𝘻𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘗𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘚𝘺𝘮𝘣𝘪𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘤 𝘚𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘭𝘺 𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘕𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘴 𝘜𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘜𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘺“.

🗓️ Thursday 25th of June 2026.
🕔 Start at 16:00, followed by a reception.
📍 AUD A, Technologiepark 46 (1st floor), 9052 Zwijnaarde, Ghent.
🗣️ Spoken language: English.

Please confirm your attendance before June 18 via this registration link.

There will also be a livestream for those who cannot attend in person via this Teams link.

We warmly welcome colleagues, researchers and anyone interested to join us for this milestone moment.

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Cheshmeh's background and history

Cheshmeh Chamani is an industrial engineer whose work centers on developing decision‑making tools that advance sustainability and circularity in supply chain operations. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Tehran in 2017, followed by a dual master’s degree in Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering through a joint program between Arts et Métiers ParisTech and the University of Tehran in 2019. She is currently a doctoral candidate in the Department of Industrial Systems Engineering and Product Design at Ghent University in Belgium.

Her early involvement in research on production planning and scheduling sparked her interest in addressing real‑world operational challenges and designing decision‑support tools that translate them into actionable, robust solutions.

Her doctoral research focuses on industrial symbiosis, a collaborative approach that enables companies to reuse waste streams, reduce landfill disposal, and support more sustainable procurement practices. Her thesis develops optimization‑based planning frameworks that help symbiotic partners coordinate resource exchanges and make robust decisions under uncertainty.

Her work has been published in international journals and presented at international conferences. She also contributes to teaching by leading exercise sessions and co‑supervising master’s theses.

Integrated Optimization of Production Planning in Symbiotic Supply Chain Network Under Uncertainty

Limited raw material resources and restrictive waste-disposal regulations are pushing industries toward more responsible resource use. Industrial symbiosis supports this shift by enabling firms to exchange and reuse waste streams known as byproducts, promoting circularity across a network. However, translating such partnerships into concrete production, inventory, and exchange decisions remains challenging, particularly under uncertainty.

This thesis proposes progressive optimization-based tactical planning frameworks for industrial symbiosis networks. The first part considers the physical characteristics of byproducts, especially storability and shelf life, and examines how partners should coordinate their decisions under deterministic conditions. A key question is whether firms should coordinate in a decentralized way, where each firm plans mainly for its own benefit, or in a centralized way, where partners coordinate more closely to maximize symbiotic benefits for the network.

The framework is then extended to uncertain demand, considering cases with reliable past data and cases where the demand distribution is not known. The goal is to develop effective solution approaches for different uncertainty settings. Finally, the thesis considers several uncertainties together, including variations in demand, byproduct generation yield, and quality, allowing centralized and decentralized collaboration to be compared under more realistic conditions.

Overall, the findings show that industrial symbiosis creates economic and environmental value, and aligning coordination policy with operational context and solution methods with the reliability of available data results in more stable and cost-effective plans.