Speakers

Biography: Dr. Lei Zhao is a professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering at Tsinghua University, where he also serves as Director of the Institute of Systems Intelligence and Industrial Computing, the Operations & Services Research (TOpS) Laboratory, and the Research Center for Transportation Science and Logistics.

His research focuses on stochastic optimization methods and their applications in logistics and transportation, with a particular emphasis on urban logistics in megacities, supply chain risk management, and omnichannel retail and logistics. His work has been funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (MOST). He has also partnered with a wide range of industry leaders, including Sinoair, Sinopec, COSCO Shipping, Alibaba, Huawei, Meituan, JD Logistics, IBM China Research Lab, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and General Mills.

He has published in ANOR, COR, EJOR, MSOM, OR Spectrum, TRB, TRC, TRE, and TS. He previously served as Secretary of the INFORMS Transportation Science and Logistics (TSL) Society and as an Associate Editor for the INFORMS Journal on Computing. He currently serves as an Associate Editor for Transportation Science and is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for Transportation Research Part E.

In 2020, he founded the Operations Research Applications in Logistics Forum at the Logistics Technology Conference, hosted by the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing (CFLP), and has co-chaired it with CFLP annually since. In 2024, he co-chaired the first INFORMS TSL Data-Driven Research Challenge in partnership with Meituan, together with Hai Wang of Singapore Management University.

Biography: Alan Erera is Manhattan Associates/Dabbiere Chair and Senior Associate Chair in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech. He is also the faculty director for the M.S. in Supply Chain Engineering program and Co-Executive Director of the Georgia Tech Panama Logistics Innovation & Research Center.

Dr. Erera is the former president of the INFORMS Transportation Science and Logistics Society and an active Senior Member of INFORMS. He is an Associate Editor for IISE Transactions in the Supply Chain and Logistics Focused Issue. Prior to joining Georgia Tech, Dr. Erera worked as a software developer and deployment consultant for the freight transportation industry. He received his B.S. Eng. from Princeton University and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Erera's research focuses on transportation and logistics systems planning and control, with an emphasis on planning under uncertainty and real-time operational control. He is the Logistics and Supply Chain Thrust co-lead for the NSF AI4OPT research center and the Distribution and Transportation Logistics research thread lead for the GT Supply Chain and Logistics Institute. His research program has been supported by federal agencies, including DHS, USDOT, and NSF, as well as major U.S. freight carriers and manufacturing firms, including UPS, The Home Depot, Michelin, Grubhub, and many others.

His recent work has addressed dynamic vehicle routing systems for same-day distribution; resilient logistics network design for food supply chains; service network design, linehaul equipment management, and driver scheduling for consolidation freight carriers; robust container fleet management for global shipping companies; and robust and flexible vehicle routing system planning and control for distribution companies. He has written extensively in these subject areas and has delivered over 100 technical presentations and invited lectures.

Biography: Jan Fransoo is Professor of Operations and Logistics Management in the School of Economics and Management at Tilburg University. He further holds visiting appointments at Eindhoven University of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Politecnico di Milano. Fransoo’s current research studies operations and decision making in retail supply chains and transport operations. He serves as Department Editor of Management Science, the top academic journal in his field. Fransoo has co-edited the books Sustainable Supply Chains and Reaching 50 Million Nanostores. Fransoo frequently collaborates in research and consulting with major corporations, tech startups, national and regional governments, and intergovernmental organizations. He has held senior leadership positions at Eindhoven University of Technology and Kuehne Logistics University, and serves on the Advisory Board of the startups UTURN and Woliz.

Biography: Dr. Silvestri is a Research Scientist at the MIT CTL Intelligent Logistics Systems Lab. Her current research focuses on supply chain network design and inventory management. Her work, conducted in collaboration with global organizations, leverages optimization and AI to enhance decision-making in supply chain and logistics systems.

Dr. Silvestri received her Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Salerno, Italy. During her Ph.D., she was a Visiting Student at the Interuniversity Research Center on Enterprise Networks, Logistics and Transportation (CIRRELT) in Montréal, Canada. Following her doctoral studies, Dr. Silvestri was a Postdoctoral Fellow at HEC Montréal, affiliated with the Institute for Data Valorisation (IVADO) and CIRRELT. Before joining MIT, she worked as a Pre-Sales Technical Consultant in Optimization at FICO.