Supervision

Research supervision and thesis guidance

This page presents my approach to research supervision, the academic and applied settings in which I supervise, and practical guidance for current and prospective students.

Supervision profile

Approach and experience

Research contexts, supervision philosophy, doctoral supervision, completed theses, and supporting academic infrastructure.

Student guidance

Expectations and Thesis Toolkit

Understand what you can expect from me, what I expect from you, and where to find practical help throughout the thesis journey.

Supervision profile

Supervision approach

I supervise research as a development process: clear expectations, early problem framing, inspectable decisions, regular feedback, and increasing ownership by the researcher. My role is to develop independent researchers who can formulate, implement, test, and communicate their own scientific contribution.

Research environments

My BSc, MSc, and PhD supervision spans transportation, logistics, warehousing, routing, fleet management, optimization, and AI for operations. Many bachelor’s and master’s projects are conducted with companies.

Mobility and transport

Dynamic vehicle routing, shared mobility, waterborne transport, and fleet management under uncertainty.

Logistics systems

Warehousing, production logistics, distribution, and company-connected improvement projects.

Emerging delivery systems

Drones, collaborative delivery modes, and heterogeneous transport resources.

Decision intelligence

Optimization, machine learning, simulation, dashboards, and research software for operational decisions.

Applied projects connect academic work with organizations in public transport, high-tech manufacturing, warehousing, engineering, consumer goods, and logistics. The scientific standard remains the same: a clear problem, a transparent method, and evidence strong enough to support the conclusion.

Thesis overview

Theses by year and role

MSc BSc PhD

2020 —

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2022 —

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2023

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2024

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2025
2026

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Current

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51 completed · 12 current. Current projects are aggregated to preserve privacy.

Doctoral supervision

PhD · 2024–present

Abbas Maleki

Design and Optimization of Drone-based Medical Items Transportation.

Ongoing doctoral co-supervision · University of Twente · Project profile ↗

PhD · 2025

Cigdem Karademir

Synchronized Two-Echelon Routing Problems: Exact and Approximate Methods for Multimodal City Logistics.

Completed doctoral co-supervision (copromotor) · Delft University of Technology · Thesis ↗

Completed theses

The lists below are generated from the Zotero collections used for this site. Adding or updating a thesis in Zotero refreshes the tracked export; the website build creates these sections from that export without manually maintained bibliography entries.

First supervision

27 records from Zotero collection Primary supervision.

Second supervision and examination

25 records from Zotero collection Second supervision and examination.

2026

Efe Tan Akbaş

Integrated Storage, Line-Feeding, and Track-and-Trace at HTM PSM

2026

Jaap Woudenberg

Developing a Planning Optimization Tool at Grolsch: A Metaheuristic Approach for a Rich Vehicle Routing Problem

2026

Saule Liudvinaviciute

Optimisation of Facility Layout and Assembly Line Balancing for a Low-Volume Manufacturing Facility

2026

Tom Mijts

Incorporating Cost Variability into Supply Chain Network Design: A Robust Modelling Perspective

2020

Veerle Tas

Towards Optimizing Dual-Mode Fleet Routing and Parcel Allocation

Reusable supervision infrastructure

The supervision, writing, milestone, template, and supporting resources turn recurring guidance into a public, inspectable system. Together they make expectations explicit, support consistent feedback, and give students a practical route from problem framing to final presentation.

For students

Hi, welcome!

I’m Breno, an Assistant Professor at the University of Twente. After supervising many thesis projects, I built this toolkit to make the process calmer and more predictable: clearer expectations, fewer last-minute surprises, and feedback you can actually act on.

If you are writing your thesis with me, start with the Research Collaboration System. It explains how we share work, how feedback works, and how to prepare for meetings. If you are not my student, feel free to reuse anything that helps.

I’m here to help you think clearly, not to tell you what to do. I expect you to lead; I will ask questions, challenge vagueness, give direct feedback, and help when you are stuck. By the end, you should be able to defend every choice you made and own the work with confidence.

I care about your development as a researcher. I’ll push you. I’ll be honest. I’ll celebrate your wins. And I’ll help you when things go wrong.

Warm regards,

Dr. Breno A. Beirigo
Assistant Professor at the University of Twente

How we will work

01

Frame

Define the operational problem, decision, stakeholders, boundary, and evidence in one page.

02

Benchmark

Establish what a valid solution must beat and how correctness will be checked.

03

Build

Develop the method through small, inspectable experiments and recorded decisions.

04

Explain

Connect results to the research question, limitations, and practical meaning.

05

Own

Make the researcher—not the supervisor—the final authority on the work.

Thesis Toolkit

The Thesis Toolkit keeps expectations, meetings, feedback, writing decisions, and milestones visible to both student and supervisor.

Start here

Collaboration

Research Collaboration System

Set up the shared workflow, meeting rhythm, decision log, and feedback cycle.

Communication

Communication and Feedback

Prepare useful questions, request feedback well, and make meetings productive.

Expectations

Thesis Guidelines

Understand scope, format, confidentiality, integrity, AI use, and assessment roles.

Independence

Authorship and Independence

Clarify ownership, supervisory boundaries, and what independent research means.

Build and check the thesis

Problem framing

Problem Statement

Develop the explanation, copy-paste template, and examples together in one guide.

Structure

Report Sections

Use a practical chapter structure for the project plan and optimization research.

Quality assurance

Report Quality Check

Review language, mathematics, visuals, citations, layout, and confidentiality before submission.

Examples

MSc Thesis Examples

Study completed work for useful patterns in modeling, structure, writing, and presentation.

Continue through the full research journey

Thesis writing

Develop the argument

Research design, scope, problem statements, research questions, literature, methods, and benchmarking.

Project milestones

Plan the progression

Kickoff, thesis preparation, green-light decisions, timeframes, and colloquium logistics.

Sensitive projects

Handle confidentiality early

Practical guidance for company data, agreements, publication restrictions, and assessment.

NoteOfficial requirements come first

This toolkit complements—but does not replace—official UT/IEM requirements and Canvas instructions. When in doubt, follow the official source.