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Supply Chain Frontiers issue #2. Read all articles in this issue. 

The MIT-Zaragoza International Logistics Program, a new partnership between the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics (CTL) and the Zaragoza Logistics Center (ZLC) in Spain, has reached another milestone with the initial appointment of faculty at the ZLC.

The MIT-Zaragoza program breaks new ground by putting academia much closer to industry and government. The new research and education facility will be located in the midst of PLAZA, a state-of-the-art logistics park in Zaragoza, Spain. Instead of putting the laboratory in the university, this new program puts the university in the midst of a large-scale laboratory.

The venture has chalked up another important innovation in the field with the appointment of faculty. "It is unusual for U.S. universities to appoint a permanent academic faculty in their overseas programs," said Jarrod Goentzel, Executive Director of the MIT-Zaragoza program. "We are committed to a program of sustained excellence in supply chain research and education, which requires an exceptional permanent faculty."

MIT drew from its experience with industry-sponsored research and with MLOG, its Master of Engineering in Logistics program, to select faculty for the new venture in Spain. From over 100 applicants, 14 were interviewed and two were hired as permanent faculty members at the ZLC. It is no accident that the successful candidates are well qualified both academically and in terms of their industry experience: a mix that is intrinsic to the MIT-Zaragoza approach.

Dr. Richard Pibernik joins the ZLC from the Goethe-University in Frankfurt, Germany, where he was Assistant Professor at the Department of Supply Chain Management in the School of Business and Economics. He received his doctorate, summa cum laude, in Business Administration from the Goethe-University.

Pibernik has a long list of industry projects to his credit, involving various private sector organizations such as Lufthansa, Celanese, Robert Bosch, KPMG, Porsche Consulting, CargoLifter, Merz Pharma, and the German Federal Railway Authority. His research interests are supply chain information systems, advanced planning and order promising systems, coordination of distributed decisions, and supply chain process management utilizing XML-Nets.

Dr. Paul Thompson has combined academic excellence with a strong record of industry research and consulting. He received his doctorate in Operations Research from MIT, a Master's in Industrial Engineering from Northeastern University, and a Bachelor's in Physics from Santa Clara University.

As an Assistant Professor at the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University he presented research papers at many national and international conferences. In 1994, when he was working with Qwest/U.S. West, Thompson received the ORSA Prize, awarded to the corporation that most successfully integrates operations research methodology into its daily operations. His research interests are network inventory management, vehicle routing, resource scheduling, telecommunications network design, project management, budget allocation, and forecasting.

Both faculty members have already been busy finalizing preparations for the inaugural academic year. The first class in the MIT-Zaragoza Master of Engineering in Logistics (ZLOG) program arrives in August. The number of student applications was triple the initial target set for the course. A diverse group of students representing 12 countries will make up the first class. "We are overwhelmed by the global interest in this new program," said Goentzel.

For more information on the ZLOG program contact Jarrod Goentzel, tel: 617 253 2053, email: goentzel@mit.edu