Organizers

Conference Chairs

Ozlem Ergun
Georgia Institute of Technology
Associate Professor, H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering

Ozlem Ergun

Dr. Özlem Ergun is an associate professor in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering. She is also a co-founder and co-director of the Health and Humanitarian Logistics Research Center at the Supply Chain and Logistics Institute. She received a B.S. in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering from Cornell University in 1996 and a Ph.D. in Operations Research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2001. Professor Ergun’s research focuses on the design and management of large-scale networks. Specifically, she studies logistics and communications networks that are dynamic and partially decentralized. She has recently focused on understanding how collaboration among different entities can help the entities to be more efficient as well as create value for the overall system. She has applied her work on network design, management and collaboration to problems arising in the airline, ocean cargo and trucking industries.

Recently, Dr. Ergun has taken a leadership role in promoting the use of systems thinking and mathematical modeling in applications with societal. As the co-director of Center for Health and Humanitarian Logistics at Georgia Tech, she has worked with organizations that respond to humanitarian crisis around the world, including: World Food Programme, CARE USA, FEMA, USACE, CDC, AFCEMA, and MedShare International.

Professor Ergun teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in optimization and logistics. She was awarded the NSF Career Award in 2003. She won the EURO/INFORMS 2007 Management Science Strategic Innovation Prize given on the subject of Logistics in 2007.

George Fenton
Humanitarian Logistics Association (HLA)
Co-Founder and Chairman

George Fenton

Mr Fenton is co-founder and chairman of the Humanitarian Logistics Association, which promotes the professionalization of the sector; he is engaged in a number of disaster management activities that help ensure that the aid sector is better placed to respond effectively to crisis: In 2002, he set up the inter-agency working group on disaster preparedness for East Africa, which promotes collaboration and information sharing on humanitarian issues. This work links with UN-OCHA’s contingency planning initiatives. In 2003, together with IFRC and UN-WFP logistics offices he co-founded the Global Fleet Forum, which now tackles key fleet management knowledge issues facing the aid community. In 2006, together with several large international non-governmental organisations, Mr Fenton led the establishment of the Supply Chain Consortium (SCC) – an initiative to improve first wave emergency logistics response.

Mr Fenton works as Supply-Chain Director for World Vision International’s Humanitarian Operations Division. As such, he is responsible for the global management of non-food relief items for emergency response and facilitates the development of humanitarian logistics capacity within the organisation, which is one of the largest NGOs in the world.

Mr Fenton has 30 years of relief and development experience, gained in the private and NGO sectors, as a programme manager, logistics and transport consultant and executive.

Pinar Keskinocak
Georgia Institute of Technology
Joseph C. Mello Professor, H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering

Pinar Keskinocak

Pinar Keskinocak is the Joseph C. Mello Professor in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering and the co-founder and co-director of the Center for Humanitarian Logistics at Georgia Institute of Technology. She also serves as the Associate Director for Research at the Health Systems Institute at Georgia Tech.

Her research focuses on applications of operations research and management science with societal impact (particularly health and humanitarian applications), supply chain management, pricing and revenue management, and logistics/transportation. She has worked on projects in several industries including automotive, semiconductor, paper manufacturing, printing, healthcare, hotels, and airlines. Her research has been published in journals such as Operations Research, Management Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Production and Operations Management, IIE Transactions, Naval Research Logistics, and Interfaces.

Julie Swann
Georgia Institute of Technology
Associate Professor, H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering

Julie Swann

Julie Swann is an associate professor in the School of ISyE at Georgia Tech. She received her B.S. in Industrial Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1996 and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences from Northwestern in 1998 and 2001, respectively. In addition to her university experience, Dr. Swann participated in several research projects at General Motors and IBM, focusing on pricing in different industries. At General Motors, Dr. Swann developed a tool integrating pricing, production and distribution of vehicles while meeting Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) requirements. At IBM, she explored pricing models for efficient bandwidth allocation.

Dr. Swann is currently focused on the modeling and analysis of problems and algorithms in logistics, transportation and supply chain management. She has particular interests in developing and analyzing tools to manage demand, such as pricing, revenue management, or lead-time quotation, to increase the flexibility in the system and is currently doing work in humanitarian supply chains. Other research interests include applications of economics and optimization to healthcare policy.

Luk Van Wassenhove
INSEAD
Academic Director of the KLU-INSEAD Research Center on Humanitarian Logistics and Professor of Operations Management

Luk Van Wassenhove

Professor Van Wassenhove’s research and teaching are concerned with operational excellence, supply chain management, continual improvement and learning. His recent research focus is on closed-loop supply chains (product take-back and end-of-life issues) and on disaster management (humanitarian logistics). He is the author of many award-winning teaching cases and regularly consults for major international corporations.

In 2005, Professor Van Wassenhove was elected Fellow of the Production and Operations Management Society (POMS). In 2006, he was the recipient of the EURO Gold Medal for outstanding academic achievement. In 2009 he was elected Distinguished Fellow of the Manufacturing and Services Operations Management Society (MSOM), and received the Lifetime Achievement Faculty Pioneer Award from the European Academy of Business in Society (EABIS) and the Aspen Institute.

Professor Van Wassenhove is currently the president of the Production and Operations Management Society. In 2011 he was elected member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Sciences.  At INSEAD he holds the Henry Ford Chair of Manufacturing. He also created the INSEAD Social Innovation Centre and acted as academic director until September 2010. At KLU he created and leads the KLU-INSEAD Humanitarian Research Centre.


Programming Committee

Martin Christopher
Cranfield School of Management
Emeritus Professor of Marketing and Logistics

Martin Christopher

Martin Christopher is Emeritus Professor of Marketing and Logistics at Cranfield School of Management. His work in the field of logistics and supply chain management has gained international recognition. He has published widely and his recent books include Logistics and Supply Chain Management and Marketing Logistics. Martin Christopher co-founded the International Journal of Logistics Management and was its joint editor for 18 years. He is a regular contributor to conferences and workshops around the world

At Cranfield, Martin Christopher chairs the Advisory Board of the Centre for Logistics and Supply Chain Management, the largest activity of its type in Europe. The work of the centre covers all aspects of logistics and supply chain management and offers both full-time and part-time Masters degree courses as well as extensive management development programmes. Research plays a key role in the work of the Centre and contributes to its international standing.

In addition to leading a number of on-going research projects in logistics and supply chain management, Martin Christopher is active as an advisor to many organisations and is non-executive director of LCP Consulting a specialist consulting service in the fields of logistics and supply chain management.

Martin Christopher is an Emeritus Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics & Transport. He is also a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. In 1988 he was awarded the Sir Robert Lawrence Gold Medal for his contribution to logistics education, in 1997 he was given the USA Council of Logistics Management’s Foundation Award and in 2005 he received the Distinguished Service Award from the USA Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals. In 2007 he was appointed a Foundation Professor of the UK Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply and in 2008 he was awarded the Swinbank Award for Lifetime Achievement by the same Institute.

He is Visiting Professor/Guest Professor at the University of Hull, England; Instituto Empresa, Madrid; IESE, Barcelona and Macquarie University, Australia, the Kuehne Logistics University, Hamburg and Chalmers University, Gothenburg.

Jarrod Goentzel
MIT Humanitarian Response Lab
Founder and Director

Jarrod Goentzel

Jarrod Goentzel is founder and director of the MIT Humanitarian Response Lab, which strives to make supply chains more responsive to human needs. His research focuses on supply chain design and management, transportation procurement and planning, humanitarian needs assessments, information management and the use of technology to facilitate decision-making. Based in the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, Dr. Goentzel has developed graduate-level courses in supply chain finance, international operations and humanitarian logistics. Previously, Dr. Goentzel was Executive Director of the MIT Supply Chain Management program, a nine-month professional master’s degree program. He joined MIT in 2003 to establish the MIT-Zaragoza International Logistics Program with the Zaragoza Logistics Center in Spain.

Mirte Gosker
The KLU-INSEAD Research Center on Humanitarian Logistics
Operations Manager

Mirte Gosker

Mirte Gosker is Operations Manager of The KLU-INSEAD Research Center on Humanitarian Logistics at The KLU in Hamburg, Germany. She received her Bachelor Degree in Cultural Anthropology and Sociology of non-Western Societies and her Master Degree in International Development Studies, focusing on Rural Development Sociology and Disaster Studies. She has worked before as Research Associate at the INSEAD Humanitarian Research Group and is project based responsible for the operations and communications of the Research Center. She is also involved in research on the topic of value for money in humanitarian organizations.

Michael Hensen
Kühne Logistics University
Director, THE KLU-INSEAD Center for Humanitarian Logistics

Michael Hensen

Dr. Michael Hensen is the Director of the KLU-INSEAD Center for Humanitarian Logistics at KLU in Hamburg, Germany. He received his M.A. in Business Administration and English Literature from the University of Wuppertal, Germany. His PhD was awarded by the University of Passau, Germany. Dr. Hensen is an experienced education and research manager for more than ten years now, five years of which he developed supply chain management and logistics institutes.

José Holguín-Veras
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
William H. Hart Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

José Holguín-Veras

Dr. José Holguín-Veras is the William H. Hart Professor, and Director of Center for Infrastructure, Transportation, and the Environment at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He received his B.Sc. in Civil Engineering, Magna Cum Laude, from the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, in 1981; his M.Sc. from the Universidad Central de Venezuela in 1984; and his Ph.D. from The University of Texas at Austin in 1996. He has been a faculty member at California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo, The City College of New York (1997-2002), and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (2002-present).

His research emphasizes: the integration of social science, field research, and engineering principles in humanitarian logistic modeling; and the integration of state of the art economic principles into transportation modeling, so that a complete picture could be developed on the broader impacts of transportation activity on the economy and the environment; and on the most effective ways to do humanitarian logistics. His work includes: basic and field research on humanitarian logistics, and basic research on transportation modeling and economics. In the area of humanitarian logistics, his team has pioneered field research on post-disaster response on the most important disasters of the decade (e.g., Katrina, Indian Ocean, Haiti, Japan, Irene, Joplin). His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the United States Department of Transportation, and New York State Department of Transportation. He is the author of more than a hundred publications in leading journals, professional conferences, and book chapters on these subjects. He is one of the most published and cited researchers in freight transportation modeling and economics, and humanitarian logistics.

He has received numerous awards, including: CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation (2001-2006); the Milton Pikarsky Memorial Award in 1996, from the Council on University Transportation Centers, the Salute to the Scholars Award from the City University of New York (in 2000 and 2001); the 2006 Robert E. Kerker Research Award in recognition of Excellence in Research of Special Importance to Practitioners and Scholars of Public Administration and Policy in New York State; the 2007 School of Engineering Research Award; and a Proclamation from the Council of the City of New York (2001). He is a fellow of: State Academy of Public Administration (2006), International Road Federation (1991), Japanese International Cooperation Agency (1989), and the Organization of American States (1982-1984).

His leadership positions at key international research organizations include: President of the Pan-American Society of Transportation Research, Elected Member of the Council for the Association for European Transport, member of the International Organizing Committee of the City Logistics Conferences. He is member of a number of editorial boards, Transportation Editor at Networks and Spatial Economics, and Associate Editor of Transportation Research: Policy and Practice. He has organized a number of international events, including: the XIII Pan-American Conference of Traffic and Transportation Engineering (PANAM), and the Pan-American Advanced Studies Institute on Transportation Sciences (PASI-TS), funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). He has been a member of expert panels, International Advisory Committees at prestigious universities, and numerous technical committees at the key professional organizations, and has served as referee for the leading journals.

He is a (pro-bono) member of a number of high level public sector committees and boards. The current list of appointments includes: Board of the New York State Thruway Authority (2010-present), Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Core Group on Community Engagement (June 2011-present), Review Panel for the Cross-Westchester Expressway (May 2011-present), Advisory Panel for the NY-NJ-CT-PA Regional Catastrophic Planning Group (March 2010-present), and Advisory Panel of the Mohawk Corridor Multimodal Transportation Study (2010-present).

He has extensive professional experience in both developing and developed countries. His professional experience includes the analysis of the intermodal alternatives for the trans-isthmian corridor that runs parallel to the Panama Canal. He has been consultant in transportation planning, modeling, and economics for international companies and financial institutions, including: The World Bank, The United Nations, The Inter-American Development Bank, Frederick Harris Inc., and Louis Berger.

Karen Spens
Hanken School of Economics
Professor of Supply Chain Management and Corporate Geography

Karen Spens

Karen Spens is Professor of Supply Chain Management and Corporate Geography at Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki, Finland where she also serves as the Dean of Education since 2010. She has written several book chapters and published in logistics and supply chain journals such as International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management, International Journal of Logistics Management and Supply Chain Management: An International Journal as well as in other journals such as Disaster Prevention and Management. She has also edited several special issues for different journals, such as Management Research New. She is the European (regional) co-editor of International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management as well as the Co-editor of the newly founded Journal of Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management. She is a co-founder of the HUMLOG institute where she also serves as a member of the board. Her research interests include humanitarian logistics, health care related research and methodological issues in logistics and supply chain management. She can be contacted at karen.spens@hanken.fi.

Prashant Yadav
William Davidson Institute (WDI), University of Michigan
Senior Research Fellow & Director of Health Care Research Initiative

Prashant Yadav

Prashant Yadav is a Senior Research Fellow at the William Davidson Institute (WDI) and Director of the Health Care Research Initiative at WDI.

A leading expert on pharmaceutical and healthcare supply chains in developing countries, Dr. Yadav research explores the functioning of healthcare supply chains using a combination of empirical, analytical and qualitative approaches. Prashant serves as an advisor in the area of pharmaceutical supply chains to the World Bank, World Health Organization, UK Department for International Development, Roll Back Malaria Partnership, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Medicines for Malaria Venture and many other global health organizations. He is the author of many scientific publications and his work on healthcare supply chains has been featured in prominent print and broadcast media.

Prior to coming to the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan, Dr. Yadav was a Professor of Supply Chain Management at the MIT-Zaragoza International Logistics Program and a Research Affiliate at the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics where he led the creation of a high impact research initiative focused on pharmaceutical supply chains in developing countries. From 2008-2010 he was also a visiting scholar at the INSEAD Social Innovation Center.

Dr. Yadav received his Ph.D. from the Manderson Graduate School of Business at the University of Alabama. He received his MBA from the FORE School of Management and his Bachelor of Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee.