Organizers
Ozlem Ergun, PhD
Northeastern University
Professor, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Dr. Özlem Ergun is currently a Professor in the Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering at Northeastern University in Boston. Prior to beginning at Northeastern, Dr. Ergun was the Coca-Cola Associate Professor in the Stewart School of Industrial & Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech where she co-founded the Center for Health & Humanitarian Systems (CHHS) and continues to serve as a co-director. Dr. Ergun’s research focuses on the design and management of large-scale networks. She has applied her work on network design, management and collaboration to problems arising in the airline, ocean cargo and trucking industries. Recently, her work has been focused on the use of systems thinking and mathematical modeling in applications with societal impact, such as applying new algorithmic and analytical tools to important real world problems. She has worked with organizations that respond to humanitarian crisis around the world, including: UN WFP, IFRC, CARE USA, FEMA, USACE, CDC, AFCEMA, and MedShare International. Dr. Ergun 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, and she was awarded the NSF Career Award in 2003.
Jarrod Goentzel, PhD
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Director, MIT Humanitarian Response Lab
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. Dr. Goentzel received a Ph.D. from the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, an M.S. in applied mathematics from Colorado State University, and a B.A. in mathematics from Tabor College with studies at the Technical University of Budapest (Hungary).
Pinar Keskinocak, PhD
Georgia Institute of Technology
Professor, School of Industrial and Systems Engineering; Co-director, CHHS
Dr. Keskinocak is co-director and co-founder of the Center for Health & Humanitarian Systems (CHHS) at Georgia Tech. She has over 20 years of experience in logistics and supply management. Her work focuses on the applications of operations research and management science with societal impact, particularly health and humanitarian applications. Her recent work has addressed infectious disease modeling (e.g., cholera, pandemic flu), evaluating intervention strategies, and resource allocation; catch-up scheduling for vaccinations; medical decision-making (e.g., disease screening); hospital operations management; disaster preparedness and response (e.g., prepositioning inventory, debris management). Dr. Keskinocak has worked on a variety of projects with companies, governmental and non-governmental organizations, and healthcare providers, including American Red Cross, CARE, CDC, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Emory University Hospital, Grady Memorial Hospital, Pan-American Health Organization, and the Task Force for Global Health.
Julie Swann, PhD
Georgia Institute of Technology
Professor, School of Industrial and Systems Engineering; Co-director, CHHS
Dr. Swann is co-director and co-founder of the Center for Health & Humanitarian Sstems (CHHS) at Georgia Tech. Her current research interests include applications of economics and optimization to healthcare policy, which recently led her to co-founded the Health Analytics Group at GT. Her research interests in supply chains and health systems intersect in her work to improve planning and response to humanitarian crises. 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 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 University in 1998 and 2001, respectively.
Luk Van Wassenhove
INSEAD
Academic Director, Humanitarian Research Group
Luk Van Wassenhove currently leads the Humanitarian Research Group at INSEAD and holds the Henry Ford Chair of Manufacturing. He created the INSEAD Social Innovation Centre and acted as academic director until September 2010. His recent research is focused on closed-loop supply chains (product take-back and end-of-life issues) and on disaster management (humanitarian logistics). He is senior editor for Manufacturing and Service Operations Management and departmental editor for Production and Operations Management. He publishes regularly in Management Science, Production and Operations Management, and many other academic as well as management journals (like Harvard Business Review, and California Management Review).
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). In 2013 he became Honorary Fellow of the European Operations Management Association (EUROMA). He is a member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Sciences.
