The MIT Emerging Market Economies Logistics Lab (EMeL) rethinks how commodities (e.g., food and minerals), human talent, and services move through emerging markets, where complexity, informality, poor policymaking and fragmentation dominate the landscape.
We collaborate with corporations, nonprofits, farmers, city leaders, and NGOs to develop resilient, inclusive supply chains that unlock access, minimize waste and adapt to genuine consumer behaviors. Our research blends predictive and prescriptive analytics, systems thinking, policy design, and tech-driven strategy to turn global challenges into local opportunities.
Embracing global uncertainty and building bottom-up local knowledge, we’re engineering a better path forward.
Research Areas
Food for Thought, Thought for Food
We explore how shopping habits, perishability and supply chains shape food access, quality, waste and behavior by empowering smallholder farmers and connecting nanostores, intermediaries, policymakers and food banks to drive smarter, fairer food ecosystems. We work to combat food malnutrition through intervention schemes, reduce food waste via circular-economy models, maintain food safety and quality through food science approaches, and connect the first-mile of perishable products to diverse markets.
Upstream Value Chains from the Global South
Our research strengthens overlooked essential supply chain inputs — including minerals, cotton, energy and talent — through intervention schemes, digital tools, strategic scenario planning and tailored solutions to build resilient ecosystems. We use interdisciplinary approaches to design bottom-up, value-adding supply chains and logistics activities that consider their social, economic, and environmental impacts across multiple stakeholders.
Connecting the Global South
We bridge the Global South and Global North through maritime and air cargo, connecting commodities worldwide, diversifying routes, reducing dependence on a single region, and enabling smoother global logistics flows through decision-support systems that enhance visibility, coordination, and competitive advantage.
Potentiating Logistics Through Public Policy
Using advanced analytics and systems thinking, we guide logistics policymaking that aligns innovation with sustainable capacity-building, and competitive development for government, academia and the private sector.
