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Plenary Speeches

"A Supply Chain Management Perspective on Humanitarian Relief Operations" by Prof Luk Van Wassenhove

Professor Van Wassenhove's research and teaching are concerned with operational excellence, supply chain management, quality, 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 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 several 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. Before joining INSEAD he was on the faculty at Erasmus University Rotterdam and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. At INSEAD he holds the Henry Ford Chair of Manufacturing. He is also the academic director of the INSEAD Social Innovation Centre

"What previous disasters teach us: the hard lessons of Katrina, Haiti s and Chilo earthquakes for humanitarian Logistics" by Prof. José Holguín-Veras

Dr. José Holguín-Veras is Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Director of the Center for Infrastructure, Transportation, and the Environment. He received his B.Sc. from the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo, Magna Cum Laude 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 is the recipient of a number of national awards, including the Milton Pikarsky Memorial Award in 1996 and the National Science Foundation's CAREER Award, for his contributions to freight transportation modeling and economics. His research interests are in the areas of: humanitarian logistics, intermodal freight transportation, freight transportation modeling, transportation planning, and transportation economics. He has published extensively in these areas. He is a member of a number of Technical Committees of the Transportation Research Board; the American Society of Civil Engineers, and is a referee for the major professional journals. He is in the editorial boards of prestigious journals, the Transportation Area Editor for Networks and Spatial Economics, member of the Council of the Pan-American Conference of Traffic and Transportation Engineering, and elected member of the Council of the Association for European Transport.

"Reverse logistics: A Review " by Prof. Surendra M. Gupta

Dr. Surendra M. Gupta is a Professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering and Director of the Laboratory for Responsible Manufacturing at Northeastern University in Boston. He received his B.E. in electronics engineering from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, M.B.A. from Bryant University, and M.S.I.E. and Ph.D. in industrial engineering from Purdue University. His research interests are in the areas of production/manufacturing systems and operations research. He is mostly interested in environmentally conscious manufacturing, disassembly modeling, remanufacturing, and reverse and closed-loop supply chains. He has authored and coauthored over 400 technical papers published in prestigious journals, books, and conference proceedings. His publications have been cited by thousands of researchers all over the world in journals, proceedings, books, and dissertations. He is an editorial board member of a variety of journals and has served as Conference Chair, Track Chair, and member of Technical Committees of numerous international conferences. Dr. Gupta has been elected to the memberships of several honor societies. He is a recipient of Outstanding Research Award and the Outstanding Industrial Engineering Professor Award (in recognition of Teaching Excellence) from Northeastern University. His recent activities can be viewed at http://www1.coe.neu.edu/~smgupta/.