Daniel Otero-León

About

Daniel Otero-Leon is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Systems and Information Engineering at the University of Virginia. He also has a courtesy appointment at the Department of Public Health Sciences. He is a member of the UVA Engineering Link Lab and the UVA Comprehensive Cancer Center. Finally, he is the lead PI of the Otero Stochastic Systems Lab.

His research combines systems engineering, operations research, and machine learning to improve decision-making in healthcare. He develops models that explain and predict complex health behaviors, including youth substance use and mental health, cardiovascular disease prevention, and cancer management. His goal is to apply these models to design personalized and effective interventions.

His work also addresses healthcare logistics and hospital operations, with projects focused on surgical scheduling, patient flow, and resource allocation. By collaborating with clinicians, public health experts, and data scientists, he bridges the gap between theory and practice, ensuring that research insights translate into improved patient outcomes, more efficient systems, and precise health policies. In addition to his research, he teaches courses on dynamic decision models and stochastic processes.

Education

Postdoctoral Fellow, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School

PhD in Industrial and Operations Engineering, University of Michigan

MSc in Industrial Engineering, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia

BSc in Industrial Engineering with Mathematics Minor, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia