Conference Leadership Team
Conference Chair
Dr Matthew Pepper
Professor
Director, Centre for Supply Chain Research
School of Business, Faculty of Business and Law, University of Wollongong NSW 2522 Australia
Matt’s PhD research centred on the design and application of continuous improvement frameworks in process industry supply chains. Recent research and consultancy activities focus on lean thinking, six sigma based process improvement and supply chain design and optimisation. Matt has undertaken research and consultancy across a range of industry sectors, including the manufacturing and process industries as well as local government. Most recently his work has focused on the implementation of continuous improvement in service environments. Matt is a member of the Editorial Advisory Boards for the Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, the International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, International Journal of Information and Operations Management Education. He is also an Associate Editor for the Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management and the IIMK Society and Management Review Journal.
Conference co-chairs
Dr Felix Kin Peng Hui
Conference Chair &
Associate Professor of Engineering Management and an Academic Specialist
Department of Infrastructure Engineering
University of Melbourne
Melbourne, Australia
Dr Felix Kin Peng Hui is an Associate Professor of Engineering Management and an Academic Specialist in the Department of Infrastructure Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and IT, University of Melbourne. He is also the Program Director/Academic Coordinator for the Master of Engineering Management program and the Engineering Business specialisation for postgraduate masters degrees.
Dr Hui is an experienced engineer with over 25 years of industry experience in managing continuous improvement projects, factories, and business units. He has held senior management positions in a range of manufacturing industries which includes machine tools, precision engineering and semiconductors. He has also consulted to organisations seeking continuous improvements to optimise their operational efficiency. His research interests are in the areas of operational process optimisation, operational efficiency, lean systems, organisational development and team dynamics in engineering projects. He is currently a lead investigator on several government funded projects which includes mega-infrastructure projects research, prefabricated modular construction research, next generation buildings with Building 4.0 CRC and on CRC-P projects involving end-of-life treatment processes. Dr Hui is a registered Professional Engineer (Singapore), an ASEAN Chartered Professional Engineer and a Fellow of Institute of Managers and Leaders.
Dr Ethan Nikookar
Deputy Discipline Leader, Supply Chain & Analytics
University of Wollongong, School of Business, Wollongong, Australia
After several delightful years of studying and conducting research in Finland and Germany, Ethan came to Australia to pursue his post-graduate studies in supply chain management. He earned his PhD in supply chain resilience and disruption management from the University of South Australia Business School. Since the completion of his Ph.D, Ethan has worked in several teaching and research positions in several large universities, including as a Lecturer at Flinders University and Researcher at the Centre for Workplace Excellence, University of South Australia Business School, And Australian Institute of Business. Ethan joined the UoW family in 2024 with a great passion for practical learning.
Ethan has also an extensive career history with some of the best-known companies in the manufacturing sector. Before academia, Ethan spent several years in various automotive and steel manufacturing companies leading supply chains.
Dr Spring Zhou
Associate Professor, School of Business
Faculty of Business and Law, University of Wollongong, Australia
Dr Quan (Spring) Zhou is an Associate professor at School of Business, Faculty of Business and Law, University of Wollongong. She obtained a PhD in Operations and Supply Chain Management from University of Auckland in 2016 for her research in managing medical supplies in national reserves. Prior to joining University of Wollongong, Spring worked as a lecturer at Massey University (2016-2018) and a Research Fellow at University of Auckland (2016) in New Zealand. Her research interests are in supply chain management, non-profit operations, inventory management of perishable products, and agricultural value chains.
As a strong proponent of practice-inspired research, Spring is passionate about combining her research interests with practical needs. Spring has been actively involved in practice-driven, applied research. For example, her PhD project was motivated by the serious expiration problem in the medical reserve stocks. In that project, she studied rotation schemes and provided suggestions on managing the medical supplies, considering the perishability of long-life medical products. Spring has also worked with AgResearch in New Zealand to evaluate on-farm changes when delivering desirable credence attributes for agri-products and explore ways to motivate changes in land use practices.
Dr Dilupa Nakandala
Professor, Associate Dean of Graduate Studies
School of Business, Human Resources & Management
Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia
Professor Dilupa Nakandala’s research interests are in innovation and technology transfer management and supply chain management. Her research has been recognised by funding from the Australian Research Council, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australia and Western Sydney University. She has published her research in top-tier journals, including Decision Support Systems, Knowledge-based Systems, European Journal of Operational Research, Supply Chain Management Journal, Int’l Journal of Production Research, and Int’l Journal of Technology Management. She has also published several book chapters and in practitioner journals and was the lead author of the ‘South Asia’ chapter of the latest UNESCO Science Report.
Dilupa obtained BSc in electrical and electronic engineering (First Class Hons) at the University of Peradeniya, MBA in management of technology at the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka and PhD in innovation studies at Western Sydney University. Dilupa possesses a rare and diverse research method skillset where those qualitative and quantitative research skills enable her to do studies using the case study method, fuzzy expert systems, genetic algorithm, agent-based modelling, and structural equation modelling. She teaches innovation, entrepreneurship, and project management at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Before joining academia in 2007, she held multiple roles in engineering, integrated solution designs, quality assurance, business, process and project management, and compliance in a multinational business environment for over eight years. She is also a certified Project Management Professional in PMI, USA and a Design Thinking practitioner and has the PRINCE2 Practitioner qualification.
Dr Peter Shi, FCILT
Deputy Director (MCom) and Head of Supply Chain Management
Macquarie Business School, Macquarie University
Chair of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport NSW Section, NSW, Australia
Peter Shi, FCILT, PhD is an academic and logistics/supply chain expert currently serving as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Management at Macquarie University Business School in Sydney, Australia. He is Deputy Course Director and Head of the Supply Chain Management Specialisation for the Master of Commerce program. His research focuses on operations, logistics, supply chain management, digital transformation, supply chain finance, and sustainable/green supply chains, and he has published extensively in peer-reviewed international journals. Peter holds the Chartered Fellow designation of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (FCILT) and contributes to the field through editorial roles on several respected journals, including Sustainable Operations and Computers. He also chairs the NSW Chapter of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport in Australia and is active in academic leadership and professional community engagement
Dr Sanjoy Paul
Associate Professor
UTS Business School
University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Sydney, Australia
Dr Sanjoy Paul is an Associate Professor in the UTS Business School, University of Technology Sydney, who works on supply chain risk and resilience, and in particular, on recovery modelling using mathematical model and optimisation.
Sanjoy’s research interests include also sustainable supply chain management, supply chain resilience, applied operations research, modelling and simulation, and intelligent decision making. His work has particular application to global supply chain interruptions, for example those experienced during pandemics, and he is now developing several supply chain recovery models that could be used by business during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. His latest research can be found in the following google scholar link.
Sanjoy has received several awards in his career, including ASOR Rising Star Award, Excellence in Early Career Research Award from UTS Business School, the Stephen Fester prize for most outstanding thesis from UNSW, high impact publications awards for publishing articles in top-tier journals, and several university scholarships for outstanding results at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Based on his citation records, he was included in the top 2% of scientists three times (based on the single year 2020, 2021 and 2022) in author databases of standardized citation indicators. He is a member of the Australian Society for Operations Research, and of the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS). Prior to joining UTS as a lecturer, Sanjoy served on the academic staff at Melbourne’s RMIT University, and before that, at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology.
Dr Ahad Ali
Associate Professor and Director of Industrial Engineering Program
Lawrence Technological University
Michigan, USA
Dr. Ahad Ali is an Associate Professor, Director of Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering and Master of Science in Industrial Engineering in the A. Leon Linton Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Lawrence Technological University, Michigan, USA. Dr. Ali is the Director of Smart Manufacturing and Lean Systems Research Group. He earned B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Khulna University of Engineering and Technology, Bangladesh, Master in Systems and Engineering Management from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Dr. Ali is the Executive Director of IEOM Society and Conference Chair of the International Conference on Industrial Engineering and operations Management. He supervised 11 doctorate students in Doctor of Engineering in Manufacturing Systems. Dr. Ali has published 60 journal and 150 conference papers. Dr Ali has done research projects with Chrysler, Ford, DTE Energy, Delphi Automotive System, GE Medical Systems, Harley-Davidson Motor Company, International Truck and Engine Corporation (ITEC), National/Panasonic Electronics, and Rockwell Automation. His research interests include quality, reliability, six sigma, manufacturing, simulation, optimization, scheduling, maintenance, e-manufacturing, lean, supply chain and logistics. He is a member of ASEE, IEEE, IEOM, INFORMS, and SME.
Dr Md Mizanur Rahman
University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia &
Director, IEOM Australia Operations
email: mizanur@ieomsociety.org
Dr Md Mizanur Rahman is a sustainable energy expert with over 22 years of experience spanning renewable energy, energy efficiency, thermodynamics, heat transfer, fluid mechanics, energy management, sustainable power generation, energy storage, and energy–environment systems. His research and professional work address contemporary challenges including net-zero energy buildings, renewable energy policy, life-cycle assessment, building energy systems, solar-assisted HVAC, long-range energy planning, flameless combustion, and distributed generation. He has actively contributed to the academic and professional community as a co-chair and organizer of multiple international conferences, and has delivered invited talks at international conferences, seminars, and professional meetings. He has published 38 peer-reviewed research articles in leading international journals and conference proceedings.
Dr Rahman has served as a Senior Lecturer at University of Technology Malaysia (UTM) for seven years and as a Lecturer/Researcher at Aalto University, Finland, for three years. In industry, he brings 12 years of engineering experience, including eight years as a Senior Project Engineer and four years as an Assistant Project Engineer, with responsibility for the full lifecycle installation of electrical distribution lines and substations. His technical expertise includes testing, calibration, and maintenance of transformers, energy meters, protective devices, and photovoltaic systems.
He holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Aalto University, Finland, and an MSc in Sustainable Energy Engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden. He is a Chartered Energy Engineer (CEng) with the Energy Institute (UK) and a Professional Member (MIEAust) of Engineers Australia. Dr Rahman is keen to further contribute to industry by applying his expertise in sustainable and renewable energy, energy policy, zero-emissions systems, climate change mitigation, energy efficiency, and energy management across the broader mechanical engineering domain.
Conference Manager
Erin Snape
Stream Lead, Transformation Management Office
Vice President Operations Portfolio, University of Wollongong
Wollongong, NSW, Australia
email: esnape@uow.edu.au
Erin Snape is a senior professional at the University of Wollongong (UOW) in Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. She serves as Stream Lead in the Transformation Management Office and is also involved in the Operations Portfolio, where she contributes to strategic change, transformation initiatives, and organisational development at the university. Before taking on her current transformation leadership role, Erin has held roles including Business Development Manager within UOW’s Innovation and Commercial Research Unit and Senior Manager, International Engagement in the Faculty of Business and Law, where she supported international student engagement and industry partnerships.
Erin is active in university community initiatives, including supporting student experiences and engagement programs, and has a strong presence in professional networks related to education, change management, and institutional transformation