Edgar Gutiérrez-Franco, PhD, is a scholar and practitioner working at the intersection of Operations Research, Artificial Intelligence, and Supply Chain Management. He is an Associate Lecturer in Operations Research at the University of Central Florida (UCF). Previously, he directed the Center for Applied Analytics and Technology at Universidad Externado de Colombia, where he led applied research initiatives and graduate programs in digital transformation, business analytics, and information technology.
He is also President of the Latin America & Caribbean Chapter of the Production and Operations Management Society (POMS LA&C). In 2025, he led the winning team of the INFORMS CODE Program (Contemporary Operations Management in Developing Economies), a highly competitive international competition recognizing innovative and impactful research on operational challenges in emerging economies.
His publication record includes more than 20 peer-reviewed journal articles in journals such as Expert Systems with Applications, Production Planning & Control, International Journal of Project Management, Applied Mathematical Modelling, Applied Ergonomics, and Nonlinear Dynamics. His research applies advanced analytics, optimization, simulation, and artificial intelligence to improve decision-making in complex operational environments.
In industry, he has led multidisciplinary teams of managers, software engineers, data scientists, and operations researchers across beverage, agribusiness, manufacturing, construction, and retail supply chains, delivering optimization, simulation, and AI-driven decision support systems that have delivered measurable improvements in planning efficiency, service levels, and logistics performance. His research interests include circular supply chains, regenerative agriculture, agri-food logistics, distribution network design, retail operations, and last-mile delivery, with emphasis on the structural challenges facing supply chains in developing economies.
He has authored and edited books with Taylor & Francis, Emerald Publishing, and Nova Science Publishers on engineering analytics, artificial intelligence, and supply chain management, and has taught undergraduate, MBA, master's, and doctoral courses in operations research, systems engineering, simulation, machine learning, and supply chain management in the United States and across Latin America.
He has maintained an active affiliation with MIT's Center for Transportation & Logistics as Visiting Scholar, Postdoctoral Associate, Research Affiliate, and Guest Lecturer, contributing through the Emerging Market Economies Logistics Lab (EMeL) to applied research on supply chain innovation, digital transformation, and logistics optimization in emerging economies.
Edgar holds a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering and Management Systems from UCF (Fulbright Scholar), an M.S. in Industrial Engineering with an emphasis in Operations Research and Statistics from Universidad de Los Andes, and a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Universidad de La
