Dr. Yates is interested in problems related to homeland security (critical infrastructure and key resource protection), defense/military (asymmetric warfare, small unit operations, command, control and communication) and extreme events (emergency preparedness, emergency evacuation). Many such problems are complex and require a multidisciplinary approach to obtain timely, accurate and reliable solutions. Dr. Yates combines elements of deterministic (e.g. linear/integer programming, graph theory) and stochastic (e.g. queuing theory, game theory) optimization with spatial modeling and associated tools/techniques to address problems of real-world size, scale and complexity in the aforementioned areas. Incorporating geographic information systems (GIS) and the tenets of geographic information science (GISc) with optimization procedures is a major focus of the research that Dr. Yates oversees and enjoys.