Nima Manaf

Gazetteer · 38.70° N → 52.09° N

Nima ManafPhD

I build decision systems for messy, high-stakes problems.

My work sits between machine learning, optimization, finance, and operations research. I care about models that survive contact with constraints, teams, and real decisions.

Current work Data Analytics Lead
Current base Netherlands
Current team Rabobank / Value Chain Finance Portfolio
See timeline

Applied machine learning, optimization, and analytics for real decision systems.

Portrait of Nima Manaf
Nima Manaf, PhD Netherlands 52.09° N, 5.12° E
Plate 01 2022 - Present Netherlands 52.09° N, 5.12° E

Rabobank

The current chapter is Rabobank, value chain finance, and research habits translated into production decisions.

  • The work now sits closer to decisions: portfolio monitoring, credit risk, model governance, and analytics that teams actually use.
  • The academic habits are still there, but the output has to survive operational, regulatory, and business constraints.

Bearings carried forward

Research moved into finance, risk, and portfolio analytics.

Current chapter

Data Analytics Lead

Rabobank / Value Chain Finance Portfolio

Rabobank office buildings on Croeselaan in Utrecht
Rabobank Headquarters / Croeselaan 18, 3521 CB Utrecht, Netherlands
Plate 02 2020 - 2022 Netherlands 51.44° N, 5.48° E

Postdoc at TU/e

The postdoc years were a proud way to give back to academia: helping bachelor's and master's students graduate, building lasting friendships and a wider research network, and joining Ivo Adan's group, a funny coincidence because his name appeared first in the references of my PhD thesis.

  • Helping bachelor's and master's students graduate became one of the parts I am proudest of.
  • Eindhoven also built a wider academic network and friendships that stayed beyond the projects.
  • The coincidence still makes me smile: I joined Ivo Adan's group after seeing his name first in my PhD thesis references.
Atlas Building at Eindhoven University of Technology
Fig. 02 · TU/e Atlas Building Image: Honeywell

Bearings carried forward

A proud giving-back chapter: student graduations, friendships, and the Ivo Adan coincidence.

Plate 03 2020 Turkey 41.01° N, 28.98° E

Final PhD stretch

I returned to Istanbul to write and defend the dissertation: Modelling and Control of Production Systems Based on Observed Inter-event Times: An Analytical and Empirical Investigation.

  • The return to Istanbul was about closing the loop: writing, defending, and turning years of work into a finished thesis.
  • The dissertation studied how observed inter-event times can be used to model and control production systems.
  • PhD Academic Excellence Award recipient.
Dissertation on arXiv
Koc University Rumelifeneri campus overlooking the Black Sea
Fig. 03 · Koc University, Rumelifeneri Campus Image: apply.ku.edu.tr

Bearings carried forward

Dissertation defended, PhD Academic Excellence Award, and the research bridge into applied decision systems.

Plate 04 2019 - 2020 Germany 48.78° N, 9.18° E

Bosch Center for Artificial Intelligence

A year at Bosch AI working on scheduling, reinforcement learning, search, and industrial data.

  • Bosch put the research inside industrial constraints: scheduling, search, reinforcement learning, and semiconductor data.
  • It made the work more concrete, because the algorithms had to meet factory-scale messiness.
Bosch research campus building in Renningen
Fig. 04 · Bosch Renningen Campus Image: Wikimedia Commons

Bearings carried forward

One year inside industrial AI.

Plate 05 2014 - 2019 Turkey 41.01° N, 28.98° E

Koc University, MSc to PhD

Istanbul became the long academic chapter: a full-scholarship MSc and then a full-scholarship PhD at Koc University.

  • MSc in Operations and Information Systems, 2014 - 2016, on full scholarship.
  • The master's work turned into a full-scholarship doctoral route through operations research, production systems, and data-driven modeling.
  • This is where I started treating uncertainty as something to model carefully, not smooth away.
Koc University Rumelifeneri campus overlooking the Black Sea
Fig. 05 · Koc University, Rumelifeneri Campus Image: apply.ku.edu.tr

Bearings carried forward

Full-scholarship MSc and PhD years that turned operations research into a doctoral path.

Plate 06 2010 - 2014 Iran 35.69° N, 51.39° E

BSc at Sharif University of Technology

Tehran meant a full-scholarship BSc in Industrial Engineering at Sharif University of Technology, often described as Iran's MIT.

  • BSc in Industrial Engineering, 2010 - 2014, on full scholarship.
  • Exceptional Talent Student distinction: top 0.1% in the National University Entrance Exam.
  • Industrial engineering gave me the language of systems, constraints, queues, and trade-offs.

Bearings carried forward

Full-scholarship BSc at Sharif, exceptional talent distinction, and the first formal step into systems thinking.

Plate 07 Beginning East Azerbaijan, Iran 38.70° N, 46.55° E

Origin

The starting point: Qaradag, in the Azerbaijan region of Iran.

  • The origin point is not a credential; it is the place that gives the route its first texture.
  • It keeps the story grounded before universities, labs, and companies enter the picture.
Babak Castle in the Qaradag mountains
Fig. 07 · Babak Castle, Qaradag Image: Wikimedia Commons

Bearings carried forward

Born in Qaradag, in northwestern Iran.

Current Practice

Current Work

The current chapter sits at the intersection of financial risk, optimization, machine learning, and decision systems used in practice.

Financial Risk and Portfolio Analytics

Portfolio monitoring, challenger modeling, regulation-facing analysis, and decision support for value chain finance and credit risk workflows.

Credit riskValue chain financeMonitoringModel governance

Learning and Optimization

Reinforcement learning, evolution strategies, graph-based modeling, and optimization methods for environments with delayed feedback and hard constraints.

Reinforcement learningEvolution strategiesGNNsStochastic optimization

Operational Systems

Production planning, inventory control, scheduling, and data-driven performance analysis for industrial systems that have to work outside the lab.

ManufacturingSchedulingInventoryOperations research

Selected Work

A few threads that stayed with me.

Plate 01 · Current work

Value Chain Finance Analytics

Leading analytics initiatives at Rabobank with a focus on portfolio performance, risk, and decision quality.

Open

Plate 02 · Research thread

Evolution Strategies for Inventory Control

Using gradient-free optimization and compact neural policies to solve lost-sales inventory problems.

Open

Plate 03 · PhD work

Production Systems from Event Data

Doctoral work on modeling production systems from observed inter-event times and using those models for better control.

Open

Writing

Selected Writing

Research notes, visual experiments, and technical essays.

Browse archive

Contact

If the problem is real and difficult, I am interested.

I am especially drawn to work that combines data, uncertainty, and operational constraints.

Email nima.manaf8@gmail.com LinkedIn Professional profile GitHub Code and experiments Scholar Publications and citations