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Combating Food Insecurity with Award-Winning Research

01-30-2025

Photo by Adobe/AI.

Photo by Adobe/AI.

Food insecurity affects millions and surprisingly, computer scientists can help fix an issue with getting the food that is available to the people who need it. A team of researchers from Purdue Computer Science has already begun helping Hoosiers and hope to expand their technology across the country.

Alex Psomas, assistant professor of computer science, Marios Mertzanidis and Paritosh Verma, Purdue CS graduate students have developed innovative solutions to combat food insecurity, winning the Best Student Paper Award at the fourth ACM Conference on Equity and Access in Algorithms, Mechanisms, and Optimization (EAAMO) 2024. 

This interdisciplinary collaboration combines cutting-edge algorithmic design and practical implementation to address real-world challenges.

 

Automating Food Distribution for a Fairer Future

“It turns out that the food banks and non-profits that are working to tackle food insecurity face a lot of problems that are computational in nature, and moreover, crucially concern normative properties like fairness, incentives, economic efficiency, and more, which is what my research focuses on,” says Verma.

The research focuses on automating FoodDrop, an initiative by the Indy Hunger Network that redirects rejected, yet edible, truckloads of food from supermarkets to food banks. Traditionally, this matching process was manual and inefficient, leading to delays and uneven resource distribution.

The team’s work introduces a computational system that ensures fair and efficient allocation of resources. Truck drivers now use a form to report rejected loads, after which an algorithm identifies suitable food banks and coordinates delivery via automated SMS notifications. The paper outlines the mathematical foundations of this system, contributing to the field of dynamic fair division—a framework for equitable decision-making when resources arrive over time.

 

Practical and Theoretical Significance

This research has far-reaching implications. On the theoretical side, the team advances key concepts in the power-of-two-choices paradigm and load balancing, foundational areas in computer science and operations research. Practically, the system has already been deployed in Indiana, with hopes to extend to neighboring states. 

“This work highlights how computational tools can address pressing social challenges,” says Psomas. “It’s not just about theoretical contributions; it’s about creating real-world impact.”

 

Award Recognition and Future Directions

Winning the Best Student Paper Award is a significant milestone for the team. “This award is a recognition of our students’ hard work and the potential of computational research to solve societal problems,” says Psomas. He also notes that presenting the research at seminars across institutions like MIT and Brown has sparked widespread excitement in the academic community.

“We hope to partner with more organizations in the future to expand our work beyond Indiana, reaching a broader network of communities in need,” says Mertzanidis. The team aims to analyze how their algorithms perform under different models and explore additional applications in the food insecurity domain, such as fair budgeting systems for food bank warehouses.

 

The ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC) 2024 and the ACM Conference on Equity and Access in Algorithms, Mechanisms, and Optimization (EAAMO) 2024

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is the world's largest educational and scientific computing society, and delivers resources that advance computing as a science and a profession. ACM provides the computing field's premier Digital Library and serves its members and the computing profession with leading-edge publications, conferences, and career resources.

EC 2024 is a leading conference that showcases the latest in theory, empirics, and applications at the interface of economics and computation.

EAAMO 2024 highlighted work along the research-to-practice pipeline to improve access to opportunity for historically underserved and disadvantaged communities and mitigate harms concerning inequitable and unsafe outcomes. 


About the Department of Computer Science at Purdue University

Founded in 1962, the Department of Computer Science was created to be an innovative base of knowledge in the emerging field of computing as the first degree-awarding program in the United States. The department continues to advance the computer science industry through research. US News & Reports ranks Purdue CS #8 in computer engineering and #19 and #16 and #18 overall in undergraduate and graduate computer science, respectively. Additionally, the program is ranked 6th in cybersecurity, 8th in software engineering, 13th in systems, 15th in programming languages and data analytics, and 18th in theory. Graduates of the program are able to solve complex and challenging problems in many fields. Our consistent success in an ever-changing landscape is reflected in the record undergraduate enrollment, increased faculty hiring, innovative research projects, and the creation of new academic programs. The increasing centrality of computer science in academic disciplines and society, and new research activities—centered around foundations and applications of artificial intelligence and machine learning, such as natural language processing, human computer interaction, vision, and robotics, as well as systems and security—are the future focus of the department. cs.purdue.edu

Last Updated: Feb 3, 2025 2:57 PM

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