About

Kayse Lee Maass is an Associate Professor and the Director of the Industrial Engineering and Operations Research department at Northeastern University College of Engineering. Her research focuses on advancing operations research methodology to address social justice, access, and equity issues, particularly within the contexts of human trafficking, mental health, housing, and food justice. She leads the Operations Research and Social Justice lab at Northeastern University and holds a research appointment with the Information and Decision Engineering Program at Mayo Clinic. Dr. Maass's work involves developing models and strategies to improve resource allocation for disrupting human trafficking networks, increasing access to services for survivors, and evaluating the effectiveness of stakeholder coordination. Her research has been supported by multiple federal grants and has informed policy and operational decisions at local, national, and international levels, including features in the 2019 United Nations Report of the Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery. She has received numerous awards, such as the NSF CAREER Award, INFORMS Judith Liebman Award, and recognition as a 'Rising Star' among INFORMS' Powerful, Pragmatic Pioneers. Dr. Maass actively contributes to professional organizations, serving on the INFORMS Subdivision Council, as INFORMS Section on Location Analysis Secretary, and as an INFORMS Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Ambassador.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Sociology
• Artificial Intelligence
• Engineering
• Engineering ethics
• Economics
• Public relations
• Operations research
• Knowledge management
• Mathematical economics
• Mathematics
• Psychology
• Mathematical optimization
• Social psychology

Selected publications

• Bi-Objective Bilevel Network Interdiction Models for Sex Trafficking Disruption

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Realistic Computational Modeling of Human Trafficking Requires Lived Experience Experts

  Journal of Human Trafficking · 2025-09-29

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Multi‐Stage Network Interdiction With Decision‐Dependent Success: Scenario Clustering and Reformulation Techniques

  Networks · 2025-09-07

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  ABSTRACT This article studies a network interdiction problem where the success of the first player's attempt to remove arcs is based on decision‐dependent success probabilities, and the second player (the follower) responds by pushing maximum flow. In this multi‐stage model, previous interdictions affect future interdictions' success probabilities. The decision‐dependent structure requires an objective function that includes a conditional probability that is nonlinear, which we reformulate into a mixed integer program using probability flow networks over all possible scenarios. However, this reformulation involves a large number of scenarios. To reduce the scenario space, we present a scenario clustering approach that exploits the problem structure while preserving optimality. We also provide a scenario clustering heuristic for further reductions and faster solution times where optimality is not guaranteed. We illustrate our method by solving instances on various physical grid and supply chain networks. We also investigate how changing decision‐dependent success probabilities over time can influence interdiction policies over these networks.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Half-Built Road: Exploring the Impediments to Justice for Victims of Labor Trafficking

  2025-05-16

  book-chapterOpen accessSenior author

  The exploitation of people in forced labor is a significant human rights violation and a threat to community safety. Despite enhanced efforts to identify and prosecute labor trafficking perpetrators in the U.S. relatively few traffickers have been held accountable. Legal advocates and providers increasingly pursue civil litigation, immigration relief, and other roads to meet victims’ needs and achieve justice. Less understood are the specific legal, structural, and cultural barriers that make the road to justice through the criminal legal system difficult for victims of labor trafficking. Utilizing a comparative case study approach, we examine the life course of five labor trafficking cases through crucial decision points in the criminal legal process. Cases were selected to provide a range of legal system pathways. Data for each case includes legal advocate case records, client interview notes, correspondence between stakeholders, court records, and stakeholder interviews. Through comparative analysis techniques, we identify barriers that derail offender accountability and stymie victim support. The findings provide guidance to improve offender accountability and suggest alternative roads to justice centering on the needs of victims. Identifying barriers in implementing anti-trafficking laws promotes more just, peaceful, and inclusive societies in furtherance of UN Sustainability Goal 16.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• From Data to Action: Responsible Analytics for Tackling Human Trafficking in the Health Care Sector

  Journal of Forensic Nursing · 2025-07-01 · 1 citations

  article

  Leveraging academic literature and insights from an interdisciplinary team of HT researchers, this study critically examines analytical approaches to address human trafficking (HT) within the health care sector. It synthesizes limitations and barriers, identifies opportunities, and proposes considerations for responsible analytics. Findings categorize limitations and barriers into two themes: extrinsic and intrinsic factors. Extrinsic factors include challenges specific to health care, arising from the nature of HT. Intrinsic factors highlight systemic issues, such as data gaps, biases, and resource limitations. Responsible analytics must be survivor-informed and practitioner-informed, include broader demographic research, and ensure transparent communication of findings. While the opportunities for analytical approaches to address HT in health care hold promise, application must be approached responsibly. Forensic nurses are uniquely positioned to assist with efforts to intervene, prevent, and care for HT survivors. By illuminating limitations, barriers, and opportunities, health care professionals will be better equipped to support and advocate for its responsible use.

  PublisherDOI

• The Half-Built Road: Exploring the Impediments to Justice for Victims of Labor Trafficking  

  CrimRxiv · 2024-03-05

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  The exploitation of people in forced labor is a significant human rights violation and a threat to community safety. Despite enhanced efforts to identify and prosecute labor trafficking perpetrators in the U.S. relatively few traffickers have been held accountable. Legal advocates and providers increasingly pursue civil litigation, immigration relief, and other roads to meet victims’ needs and achieve justice. Less understood are the specific legal, structural, and cultural barriers that make the road to justice through the criminal legal system difficult for victims of labor trafficking. Utilizing a comparative case study approach, we examine the life course of five labor trafficking cases through crucial decision points in the criminal legal process. Cases were selected to provide a range of legal system pathways. Data for each case includes legal advocate case records, client interview notes, correspondence between stakeholders, court records, and stakeholder interviews. Through comparative analysis techniques, we identify barriers that derail offender accountability and stymie victim support. The findings provide guidance to improve offender accountability and suggest alternative roads to justice centering on the needs of victims. Identifying barriers in implementing anti-trafficking laws promotes more just, peaceful, and inclusive societies in furtherance of UN Sustainability Goal 16.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Half-Built Road: Exploring the Impediments to Justice for Victims of Labor Trafficking

  Journal of Human Trafficking · 2024-02-28 · 4 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  The exploitation of people in forced labor is a significant human rights violation and a threat to community safety. Despite enhanced efforts to identify and prosecute labor trafficking perpetrators in the U.S. relatively few traffickers have been held accountable. Legal advocates and providers increasingly pursue civil litigation, immigration relief, and other roads to meet victims' needs and achieve justice. Less understood are the specific legal, structural, and cultural barriers that make the road to justice through the criminal legal system difficult for victims of labor trafficking. Utilizing a comparative case study approach, we examine the life course of five labor trafficking cases through crucial decision points in the criminal legal process. Cases were selected to provide a range of legal system pathways. Data for each case includes legal advocate case records, client interview notes, correspondence between stakeholders, court records, and stakeholder interviews. Through comparative analysis techniques, we identify barriers that derail offender accountability and stymie victim support. The findings provide guidance to improve offender accountability and suggest alternative roads to justice centering on the needs of victims. Identifying barriers in implementing anti-trafficking laws promotes more just, peaceful, and inclusive societies in furtherance of UN Sustainability Goal 16.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Enhancing detection of labor violations in the agricultural sector: A multilevel generalized linear regression model of H-2A violation counts

  PLoS ONE · 2024-05-17 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Agricultural workers are essential to the supply chain for our daily food, and yet, many face harmful work conditions, including garnished wages, and other labor violations. Workers on H-2A visas are particularly vulnerable due to the precarity of their immigration status being tied to their employer. Although worksite inspections are one mechanism to detect such violations, many labor violations affecting agricultural workers go undetected due to limited inspection resources. In this study, we identify multiple state and industry level factors that correlate with H-2A violations identified by the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division using a multilevel zero-inflated negative binomial model. We find that three state-level factors (average farm acreage size, the number of agricultural establishments with less than 20 employees, and higher poverty rates) are correlated with H-2A violations. These findings offer valuable insights into where H-2A violations are being detected at the state and industry levels.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Multi-Stage Network Interdiction with Decision-Dependent Success: Scenario Clustering and Reformulation Techniques

  2024-11-18

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  This article studies a network interdiction problem where the success of the first player's attempt to remove arcs is based on decision- dependent success probabilities, and the second player (the follower) responds by pushing maximum flow. In this multi-stage model, previous interdictions affect future interdictions' success probabilities. The decision-dependent structure requires an objective function that includes a conditional probability that is nonlinear, which we reformulate into a mixed integer program using probability flow networks over all possible scenarios. However, this reformulation involves a large number of scenarios. To reduce the scenario space, we present a scenario clustering approach that exploits the problem structure while preserving optimality. We also provide a scenario clustering heuristic for further reductions and faster solution times where optimality is not guaranteed. We illustrate our method by solving instances on various physical grid and supply chain networks. We also investigate how changing decision-dependent success probabilities over time can influence interdiction policies over these networks.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Ties That Link Us: Uncovering the Socio-Technic Connections of Labor Trafficking Networks

  Production and Operations Management · 2024-02-05 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Recent attention to labor trafficking as an underaddressed part of human trafficking has added urgency to the need to improve corporate supply chain actions and policies. Through a cross-case analysis of data from the agricultural sector in the United States, this paper seeks to understand labor trafficking operations through a socio-technic systems theory lens and contributes to prior literature on labor trafficking in three important ways. First, we utilize a cross-case approach to explore labor trafficking operations through a network lens and derive insights into the interconnectivity and key players in each labor trafficking operation. Second, we outline the socio-technic practices of those labor trafficking networks that maintained ties to corporate supply chains. Hence, the scope of operations management socio-technic theory is widened to also include exploitative and harmful practices. Third, we elucidate the connections between corporate and labor trafficking systems to demonstrate that corporate responsibility does not exist in a vacuum and that the interplay between legal and illicit organizations is of critical importance in combating human trafficking. Altogether, this article provides an interdisciplinary perspective using insights from operations management theory, criminology, and network design. In doing so, the assessment of socio-technic dynamics between actors broadens the operations and supply chain frame of reference beyond corporate socio-technic systems to include the illicit systems they are connected to.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• ISN2: Coordinated Interdiction for Disruption of Labor Trafficking in the Agricultural Sector

  NSF · $642k · 2020–2024

Frequent coauthors

• Renata Konrad

  15 shared

• Andrew C. Trapp

  14 shared

• Geri L. Dimas

  Worcester Polytechnic Institute

  12 shared

• Mark S. Daskin

  10 shared

• Thomas C. Sharkey

  Clemson University

  10 shared

• Amy Farrell

  9 shared

• Shawn Bhimani

  Northeastern University

  8 shared

• Yaren Bilge Kaya

  7 shared

Labs

• Operations Research and Social Justice LabPI

Education

• Ph.D. Industrial and Operations Engineering, Industrial and Operations Engineering

  University of Michigan

  2017

• M.S. Industrial and Operations Engineering, Industrial and Operations Engineering

  University of Michigan

  2014

• B.A. Mathematics, Mathematics

  Bethel University

  2012

• B.A. Physics, Physics

  Bethel University

  2012

Awards & honors

• INFORMS Judith Liebman Award
• Industrial Engineering Professor of the Year at Northeastern…
• NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program Award
• INFORMS Section on Location Analysis Dissertation Award
• Rising Star among INFORMS’ Powerful, Pragmatic Pioneers