2025 Research Forum – Supply Chain Challenges: Practical Insights from Emerging Academic Research

Bio:

Remi Charpin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Logistics and Operations Management at HEC Montréal. His research interests span the influence of political risk on global operations and more specifically how firms can mitigate the effects of nationalism and geopolitical tensions on their supply chains. He uses empirical methods such as case study and econometrics to examine these topics.

Bio:

David Johnston is the Director and Research Chair of the George Weston Ltd. Centre for Sustainable Supply Chains at the Schulich School of Business, and Program Director of the Master of Supply Chain Management (MSCM) program. Dr. Johnston’s published research is in collaborative supply chain management, operational sustainability, improving healthcare operations and the management of process innovation. His most recent work is focused on strategies for securing the long term resilience of critical supply chains.

Bio:

Adam Diamant is an Associate Professor at the Schulich School of Business, and York Research Chair in Managing AI-Driven Technologies in Health Care. His research uses mathematical techniques and data-driven methodologies to model and study complex, large-scale systems in health care to obtain insights for better administrative and operational decision making.

Bio:

Robert Klassen is a Professor of Operations Management at Ivey Business School.

Robert's research interests focus on exploring the linkages between operations and sustainability with a particular focus on supply chain management. This research has emphasized, first, characterizing management practices and organizational capabilities, and second, understanding both the antecedents and performance outcomes of these practices and capabilities.

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Dr. Xiaodan Pan is an Associate Professor, Supply Chain and Business Technology Management, at the John Molson School of Business, Concordia University. Dr. Pan's research focuses on leveraging business analytics to improve societal well-being, with a particular emphasis on enhancing operations of businesses in the retail and service sectors. Her primary research areas include: consumer stockpiling behavior, disaster risk and resilience, retail operations strategies, last-mile delivery logistics, and innovations in retail technology. She investigates these domains within the context of broader societal challenges such as economic fluctuations, natural disasters, public health crises, and digital inequalities.

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Gal Raz is an Associate Professor, Operations and Supply Chain Management at the Ivey Business School. He received his Ph.D. in business and a master's degree focusing on public policy from Stanford University. His research centres on supply-chain management and sustainable operations, with a special focus on pricing, remanufacturing, innovation and government environmental regulations.

Bio:

Claudia Rebolledo is a Professor and holder of the Supply Chain Canada Professorship at the Department of Logistics and Operations Management at HEC Montréal, Canada. Her research focuses mainly on inter-firm relationships in supply chains, supplier development, purchasing strategy and sustainable procurement. She uses several empirical research methods, having a deep interest in collaborative research, especially for projects within the healthcare sector.

Bio:

M. Rungtusanatham is a Professor at the University of Cincinnati; a 2017 Fellow inductee of the Decision Sciences Institute; a 2015 Dennis E. Grawoig Distinguished Service Award also from the Decision Sciences Institute. He is considered as one of the top-50 authors of research in supply chain management, according to Supply Chain Management: An International Journal (in 2019), and a top “individual researchers with greatest overall contribution to the field of Operations Management,” according to International Journal of Production Research (in 2015).

Bio:

Lingling Shi is an Assistant Professor of Operations Management at the DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University. Her recent research work focuses on sustainable operations, green technology development, and innovative business models. Lingling completed her PhD in Operations Management at the UT Dallas Jindal School of Management and was a Post-doctoral Fellow in the Operations Research and Engineering Management Department at Southern Methodist University. Prior to academic work, she cofounded a startup electric vehicle technology company, where she fostered research interests in Operations Management to address climate change and sustainable development problems.

Bio:

Mohamad Soltani is an Assistant Professor of Operations Management in the Department of Accounting and Business Analytics at the Alberta School of Business. He also holds an Honorary Fellow appointment with the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health.

His research interests lie in the empirical analysis of service operations, with a primary focus on healthcare operations. In particular, he employs data-driven approaches to uncover latent interactions between healthcare policymakers, service providers, and patients to provide a systematic perspective on healthcare delivery that ultimately impacts service efficiency and care quality.

Bio:

Kelsey Taylor is an Assistant Professor at the Gordon S. Lang School of Business and Economics, University of Guelph. She completed her Ph.D. in Operations Management at the Ivey Business School at Western University and holds a Master’s of Environment and Sustainability from Western University with an earlier background in Sociology. Her research examines multiple dimensions of environmental and social responsibility in supply chains using quantitative and qualitative research methods, such as case studies, behavioral experiments, and econometric analysis.

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Ikeoluwa Aregbe is a Ph.D. student at the Gordon S. Lang School of Business and Economics, University of Guelph. She holds a Master of Science in Food and Resource Economics from the University of Florida. Her research focuses on sustainable food systems and supply chains, with a particular interest in logistics, sustainability practices, and the circular economy. She is passionate about bridging the gap between academic research and practical solutions for farming businesses and global supply chains, ultimately driving sustainability and resilience in food systems and beyond.

Bio:

Nymisha Bandi is a PhD candidate at the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University. Her research lies at the intersection of retail operations, field experiments, and machine learning, with a strong focus on promoting socially responsible decision-making. Through the design and execution of field experiments in retail environments, Nymisha aims to understand and influence consumer behavior, uncovering insights that lead to meaningful and impactful outcomes.

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Joëlle is a Ph.D. candidate in Administration at HEC Montréal, specializing in Operations Management and Logistics. Her research focuses on emergency transportation and improving community safety through evacuation simulation models. She has contributed to projects such as designing a simulation model for Quebec’s Aeromedical Evacuation Program (EVAQ) and is currently collaborating with municipalities affected by the 2023 wildfires to enhance evacuation preparedness and decision-making.

Bio:

Alireza Ghahtarani is a Postdoctoral Fellow at HEC Montreal, where he employs deep reinforcement learning to address online stochastic optimization challenges. His current work involves applying gamification principles to electric vehicle (EV) charging scheduling, using advanced reinforcement learning models to design more efficient and user-centric solutions for large-scale charging networks. Prior to this, he held a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Toronto, contributing to workforce planning research aimed at strengthening health system resilience in critical care settings. Alireza earned his PhD in Industrial Engineering from Dalhousie University, where his research focused on robust asset-liability management under uncertainty. His interests lie at the intersection of operations research, data-driven decision-making, and optimization under uncertainty, with a particular emphasis on risk management, resource allocation, and long-term strategic planning.

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Sunny (Huiqing) Tian is a Ph.D. student in Operations Management and Information Systems at the Schulich School of Business, York University. Her research interest focuses on sustainable supplier selection and understanding the ways in which organizations develop capabilities to purchase sustainably, employing methods such as interviews and behavioral experiments. Sunny previously completed her Master of Environment and Sustainability at Western University.

Bio:

Julianna Egressy is the Vice President of Supply Chain at Medicom. She has over 30 years of experience in end-to-end supply chain operations working for organizations such as Medicom, Bosch GMBH, Procter and Gamble, and Nestlé Skin Health, among others. Julianna has a strong passion for sustainable development approaches and leads Medicom North America’s sustainability journey. Julianna holds a B. Eng. in chemical engineering and an IMBA from Schulich’s School of Business, York University.