Cynthia Barnhart serves as the interim dean in the School of Engineering at MIT, as a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Engineering Systems Division, and as co-director of the Operations Research Center.

Barnhart’s research and teaching activities have focused on the development of optimization models and methods for designing, planning and operating transportation systems.

She currently serves or has served as area editor (transportation) for Operations Research, as associate editor for Operations Research and for Transportation Science, as president of the INFORMS Women in Operations Research/ Management Science Forum, as president of the INFORMS Transportation and Logistics Section, as president of INFORMS, and as co-director of MIT’s Center for Transportation and Logistics.

Barnhart has been awarded the Franz Edelman Second Prize for Achievement in Operations and the Management Sciences, the Junior Faculty Career Award from the General Electric Foundation, the Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation, the First Prize Award for Best Paper in Transportation Science and Logistics and the INFORMS award for the Advancement of Women in Operations Research and Management Science.

Peter P. Belobaba is a principal research scientist at MIT, where he teaches graduate courses on the airline industry and airline management. He is program manager of MIT’s Global Airline Industry Program and director of the MIT PODS Revenue Management Research Consortium.

Dr. Belobaba holds a SM in transportation and a PhD in flight transportation systems from MIT. He is lead author and editor of the recently released book, The Global Airline Industry. Dr. Belobaba has been involved in research and consulting related to airline economics, pricing, competition and revenue management since 1985. He has worked as a consultant on the evaluation, development, simulation and implementation of revenue management systems at more than 40 airlines and other companies worldwide.

He has also published articles dealing with operating costs, pricing, revenue management and airline competition in Airline Business, Operations Research, Transportation Science, Decision Sciences, Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, Transportation Research and the Journal of Air Transport Management.

Dr. Edgar Blanco is a research director at the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics and is the executive director of the MIT SCALE Network in Latin America.

His current research focus is the design of environmentally efficient supply chains. He also leads research initiatives on supply-chain innovations in emerging markets, disruptive mobile technologies in value chains and optimization of humanitarian operations.

Dr. Blanco has more than 13 years of experience in designing and improving logistics and supply-chain systems, including the application of operations research techniques, statistical methods, GIS technologies and software solutions to deliver significant savings in business operations. Prior to joining MIT, he was leading the Inventory Optimization practice at Retek (now Oracle Retail). He received his PhD from the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

His educational background includes a BS and MS in industrial engineering from Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá, Colombia) and an MS in operations research from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Christopher Caplice runs the Center for Transportation and Logistics at MIT. He is responsible for the planning and management of the research, education and corporate-outreach programs for the center, including the Supply Chain Exchange and the Master of Engineering in Logistics graduate program.

He is also the founder of the MIT FreightLab — a research initiative that focuses on improving the way freight transportation is designed, procured and managed. His primary research is in the design, procurement and management of freight transportation systems to include combinatorial auctions, robust planning and performance metrics. He has presented and published in numerous business and academic conferences and journals.

Daniel Cohn began a career at MIT in 1971 as a research staff member at the Francis Bitter National Magnet Laboratory.

He has been involved in a variety of research activities involving use of plasmas for environmental and energy applications. He is currently head of the Plasma Technology Division of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center. Cohn also holds an appointment as a senior research scientist with the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering.

He was a consultant in laser-related defense technologies for MIT Lincoln Laboratory from 1986-1991. Cohn was a co-founder of Integrated Environmental Technologies, an early stage commercial stage company that provides plasma furnace systems for environmentally protective conversion of hazardous, medical, municipal and other waste into hydrogen and other valuable products. Cohn is a holder of 25 U.S. patents. He has authored or co-authored more than 150 publications in journals, conference proceedings and book chapters. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and a member of the American Nuclear Society where he served as chairman of the Fusion Division. Cohn was editor of the Journal of Fusion Energy from 1984-1992. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Cohn was a recipient of R&D 100 Awards for environmental technologies in 1994, 1995 and 1998. He was the winner of the Discover Award for Technological Innovation in Transportation in 1999, given for his work on plasma boosted onboard hydrogen generation for environmentally improved internal combustion engines.

Mary Cummings is director of the Humans and Automation Laboratory and an associate professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Engineering Systems Division.

She is a former Navy pilot, and was one of the Navy's first female fighter pilots. She specializes in human interaction with complex automated systems, including manned and unmanned aircraft.

Edward M. Greitzer is the H. N. Slater Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT. He received his BA, MS and PhD from Harvard University. Prior to joining MIT in 1977, he was with United Technologies Corporation, and he was again at United Technologies Research Center as director, Aeromechanical, Chemical, and Fluid Systems, while on leave from MIT. He is a former director of the MIT Gas Turbine Laboratory.

His research spans a range of topics on gas-turbine engines for aircraft and land-based power and on different types of turbomachinery. These include propulsion, gas-turbine engine stability and control, turbomachinery fluid dynamics, and internal flow in fluid machinery. Greitzer is a three-time recipient of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Gas Turbine Award, an ASME Freeman Scholar in Fluids Engineering, an International Gas Turbine Institute (IGTI) Scholar, a recipient of the IGTI Aircraft Engine Technology Award, the ASME R. Tom Sawyer Award and the Air Force Exceptional Civilian Service Medal.

He is lead author of the book Internal Flow: Concepts and Applications, published by Cambridge University Press, and was the MIT co-lead of the Cambridge-MIT Silent Aircraft Initiative. Greitzer is a fellow of ASME and AIAA, an honorary professor of Beihang University, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and an international fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

John Hansman is a professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT, where he is head of the Humans and Automation Division. He also is director of the International Center for Air Transportation.

His current research interests focus on advanced cockpit information systems, including Flight Management Systems, Air-Ground Datalink, Electronic Charting, Advanced Alerting Systems, and Flight Crew Situational Awareness. Hansman received a PhD from MIT in 1982. He holds six U.S. patents and has authored more than 250 technical publications. He is also an internationally recognized expert in aviation meteorological hazards such as icing and windshear.

He is a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). He received the 1998 Bose Award for Excellence in Teaching, the 1997 FAA Excellence in Aviation Award, the 1994 Losey Atmospheric Award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the 1990 OSTIV Diploma for Technical Contributions and the 1986 AIAA Award for Best Paper in Thermophysics. He recently served as co-chair of the MIT Presidential Task Force on Student Life and Learning.

Jonathan P. How is a professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT (tenured in 2003, promoted to full professor in 2007). He received a BASc from the University of Toronto in 1987 and his SM and PhD in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT in 1990 and 1993, respectively. He then studied for two years at MIT as a postdoctoral associate for the Middeck Active Control Experiment (MACE), which flew onboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour in March 1995.

Prior to joining MIT in 2000, he was an assistant professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University. He has graduated a total of 28 PhD students while at MIT and Stanford University on topics related to GPS navigation, multivehicle planning and robust/hybrid control. He has published more than 200 articles in technical proceedings, and 59 papers in technical journals.

Current research interests include the design and implementation of distributed robust planning algorithms to coordinate multiple autonomous vehicles in dynamic uncertain environments; and adaptive flight control to enable autonomous agile flight and aerobatics. How was the planning and control lead for the MIT DARPA Urban Challenge team that placed fourth in the race at Victorville, Calif. He was the recipient of the 2002 Institute of Navigation Burka Award, a recipient of a Boeing Special Invention award in 2008, is the Raymond L. Bisplinghoff Fellow for MIT AeroAstro, an associate fellow of AIAA and a senior member of IEEE.