Tom Van Woensel is a Full Professor of Freight Transport and Logistics in the OPAC group (Operations, Planning, Accounting and Control) of the Department of Industrial Engineering and Innovation Sciences at the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven in the Netherlands. I work with around 20 Ph.D. students on various Operations Research models for several Transport and Logistics problems. Typical problems include city logistics (last mile, urban, etc.), cargo hitching, and multi-modal transportation. Methods include Operations Research methods, like integer programming, branch-and-price, and metaheuristics, but also Artificial Intelligence approaches, like reinforcement learning and other machine learning methods, are also used.

In July 2019, he was appointed Director of Education and Graduate Program Director of the Department of Industrial Engineering & Innovation Sciences (around 2300 students in various BSc, MSc, and Ph.D. programs). He is also the program chair of the Bachelor Program in Industrial Engineering (about 850 undergraduate students). Prof. Van Woensel also serves as Academic Director of the Global Supply Chain Management program at the Antwerp Management School, Belgium. He is also the co-Academic Director of the TIAS Executive Master in Operations and Supply Chain Management. As a collaborating member, he is also connected to the CIRRELT (Centre interuniversitaire de recherche sur les réseaux d’entreprise, la logistique et le transport) in Montreal, Canada.

His research is mainly focused on Freight Transport and Logistics. He published over 125 papers in leading academic journals (including Management Science, Transportation Science, Transportation Research Part B, C, D, E, Production and Operations Management, Interfaces, Computers and Operations Research, European Journal of Operational Research, etc.) and several chapters in international books. More information on all publications can also be found on Google Scholar (the current h-index is 53, with around 10,000 citations to his work).

As the lead scientist from the TU/e, he secured several grants from the EU, Dinalog, Transumo, NWO, and several companies (Eyefreight, Binnenstadservice, Connexxion, Lekkerland, FloraHolland, P&G, etc.). Van Woensel is also an associate editor for Transportation Science, OR Spectrum, Urban Science, and Logistics Research.

Professor Van Woensel conducted many projects with industry, mainly with and through his Master’s, Professional Doctorate, and Doctorate students. He is also a frequent speaker at academic and professional conferences in the Netherlands and abroad.

Prof. dr. Van Woensel is also the director of the European Supply Chain Forum, a collaborative effort with about 75 large multinational companies.