David Simchi-Levi is a professor of Engineering Systems at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research currently focuses on the analysis, development and implementation of robust and efficient techniques for the design, control and operation of logistics systems. He has published widely in professional journals on both practical and theoretical aspects of logistics and supply chain management. He has been the principal investigator for about two million dollars in funded academic research. He is Associate Editor for several scientific journals and a former Area Editor of Transportation for Operations Research. His Ph.D. students have accepted positions in leading academic institutes including Berkeley, Columbia U., U. of Michigan, Purdue U. and Virginia Tech.

Professor Simchi-Levi is the co-author (with Julien Bramel) of The Logic of Logistics, published by Springer in 1997. His new book, Designing and Managing the Supply Chain, written with P. Kaminsky and E. Simchi-Levi was published by Irwin/McGraw-Hill in August 1999. The book received the Book-of-the-year award and the Outstanding IIE Publication award given in 2000 by the Institute of Industrial Engineers.

He is the founder and chairman of LogicTools (http://www.logic-tools.com/), a software company focusing on developing Decision Support Systems for solving logistics and supply chain management problems. These systems have been used widely to reduce cost and improve service level in large-scale logistics systems.

Professor Simchi-Levi has consulted and collaborated extensively with private and public organizations. He is one of the developers of a Decision Support System for school bus routing used by New York City Board of Education to route and schedule school buses throughout the five boroughs in New York City. The system won the first place prize in the 1994 Win World Competition for the Public Sector.