Dr. Louis A. Martin-Vega is the Dean of Engineering at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina. With more than 8,500 students, 700 faculty and staff, and $129 million in annual research expenditures, NC State’s College of Engineering is internationally recognized for the excellence of its research, education and outreach programs. In 2008, the College received an $18.5 million award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to establish FREEDM, an Engineering Research Center focused on developing the next generation of distribution and management systems for renewable energy sources.

Martin-Vega came to NC State in 2006 after spending five years as dean of engineering at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida. He has also held several prestigious positions at NSF including acting head of its Engineering Directorate and director of NSF’s Division of Design, Manufacture and Industrial Innovation. He has also served as chairman of the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering at Lehigh University, Lockheed Professor in the College of Engineering at Florida Institute of Technology and held tenured faculty positions at the University of Florida and the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez. He is the author or co-author of more than 100 journal articles, book chapters and other publications and has made numerous keynote and related presentations at national and international forums.

His research and teaching interests are in production and manufacturing systems, logistics and distribution, operations management and engineering education. His work has been supported by NSF, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the US Air Force, Harris Semiconductor, and Hewlett-Packard, among other sources. A registered professional engineer in Florida and Puerto Rico, he is a Fellow of the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE) and the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) and a member of INFORMS, ASEE, Tau Beta Pi, Alpha Pi Mu and Sigma Xi.

Martin-Vega received the Albert Holzman Distinguished Educator Award from IIE in May 1999 and served as President of IIE in 2007-08. He was also inducted into the Pan American Academy of Engineering in 2002. His efforts in college education and promotion of diversity were nationally recognized in 2000 through his receipt of the Hispanic Engineering National Achievement Award – Higher Education Category from HENACC. In 2007 he received the Tampa Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) National Hispanic Scientist Award and was named that same year by Hispanic Business magazine as one of its 100 Most Influential Hispanics. He was recognized in 2008 as the Outstanding Engineer in North Carolina by the North Carolina Society of Engineers.

He received the Industrial and Systems Engineering Alumni Leadership Award from the University of Florida in 2009, the Institute of Industrial Engineers’ UPS Award for Minority Advancement in Industrial Engineering in 2010, and is currently on the executive board of the National GEM Consortium.

Martin-Vega received his BS in industrial engineering from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, an MS in operations research from New York University and ME and PhD degrees in industrial and systems engineering from the University of Florida.

Prof. Ulusoy received his BS in mechanical engineering from Robert College, Istanbul in 1970; MS in mechanical engineering from University of Rochester in 1972 and PhD in operations research from Virginia Tech in 1975. From 1976 to 1999 he was a faculty member in the Industrial Engineering Department of Boğaziçi University, Istanbul. He served as the Chairman of the Industrial Engineering Department (1985-1993) and as Vice Rector of Boğaziçi University (1992-1993). He was a member of the Executive Committee of the Turkish Scientific and Technical Research Council (1993-1997 ) and Chairman of the Executive Committee of Marmara Research Center (1995-1997). In 1999, he joined the Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences at Sabancı University in Istanbul as the Founding Coordinator of the Manufacturing Systems Engineering Program. In 2001, he founded and became the Co-Coordinator of the Leaders for Industry Program till 2004. In 2003, he founded the TUSIAD – Sabancı University Competitiveness Forum and served as the Founding Director of the Forum till 2008. He has served as a member of the Standing Committee on Sustainable Competitiveness of the Manufacturing Industry established by  the Office of the Prime Minister of Turkey (2007-2010).

He served as an Executive Committee Member (1976-1989) and Vice President (1981-1989) of the Turkish Operational Research Society. He was Executive Committee Member (1998 - 2002) of the Turkish Quality Society and served as the Chair of the TUSIAD-KalDer National Quality Award Committee (1998-2002).

Prof. Ulusoy was an Associate Editor of the European Journal of Operational Research, Chief Editor of the Turkish Journal of Operational Research and served as the Guest Editor for several academic journals. Currently, he is the Associate Editor of the Turkish Journal of Operational Research and the Journal of Operations and Logistics. He has published in Operations Research, Interfaces, Journal of the Operational Research Society, European Journal of Operational Research, International Journal of Production Economics, International Journal of Production Research, IIE Transactions, International Journal of Production and Operations Management, Journal of Operations Management, Naval Research Logistics, Computers & OR, and Industrial Engineering (Turkish). His primary research areas are project and machine scheduling; innovation and manufacturing strategy development; operations and project management; and evolutionary algorithms.

Akın started his professional life as an Engineer at Olmuksa (currently International Paper) in 1988. After completing his military obligation, he was transferred to Toyotasa in 1990 and left the company as the Welding Shop Assistant Manager in 1996. In 1997, he joined Honda as the Production Manager and was assigned to Honda Canada as the Engineering Manager in 1999. He started consulting to Ford, Chrysler and GM with RWD in 2001 and joined Gates in 2003 as their Lean Implementation Manager. Starting from 2005, he carried out Lean implementations as Alcoa Operations Management Consulting Account Manager in Europe. He joined CNH Canada of FIAT group in the second half of 2009. Since the last two years he is the Industrial Operations Director of TOFAS (a JV between FIAT and KOC) which produces 300K light commercial vehicles annually in Bursa, Turkey.

Akın graduated from Middle East Technical University, Department of Mechanical Engineering in 1988 and received his MBA degree from Thunderbird School of Global Management.

He was born in 1964, in Ankara. He has a daughter. He speaks English, German and Japanese.

Robert D. Austin is Dean of the Faculty of Business Administration at the University of New Brunswick (UNB) at Fredericton (Canada).

During his academic career, he has published in highly regarded academic and profesional venues, such as Harvard Business Review, Information Systems Research, Management Science, MIT Sloan Management Review, Organization Science, and the Wall Street Journal. His books include The Adventures of an IT Leader (Harvard Business Press, 2009, coauthored with Richard L. Nolan and Shannon O’Donnell, listed on several “Best Books” lists for the year), Corporate Information Strategy and Management (McGraw Hill, 2009, 8^th edition, coauthored with Lynda Applegate and Deborah Soule/Warren McFarlan), The Broadband Explosion: Leading Thinkers on the Promise of a Truly Interactive World (Harvard Business Press, co-edited with Stephen P. Bradley), Artful Making: What Managers Need to Know About How Artists Work, (Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2003, coauthored with Lee Devin, and recipient of the Elliot Hayes Award), Creating Business Advantage in the Information Age (McGraw Hill, 2001, coauthored with Lynda M. Applegate and F. Warren McFarlan), and Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations (Dorset House, 1996). Two new books, Harder Than I Thought: Adventures of a 21^st Century Leader (Harvard Business Review Press, a sequel to Adventures of an IT Leader, with same coauthors) and The Soul of Design: The Power of Plot to Create Extraordinary Products (Stanford University Press, with Lee Devin) are forthcoming in 2012. In addition, he’s the faculty author of the “Project Management Simulation: Scope, Resources, Schedule” (Harvard Business School Publishing, 2009).

Before becoming Dean at UNB, Austin held the Chair in Management of Creativity and Innovation in the Department of Management, Politics, and Philosophy at Copenhagen Business School (CBS); before that he was an Associate Professor of Technology and Operations Management at the Harvard Business School, where he taught MBA courses related to Creative Economy, Operations Management, IT, and Accounting, and also extensively in Executive Education.

He’s also had extensive experience as a practicing manager, primarily at Ford Motor Company, but also as chief operations executive for new business incubated by a major tech company. Over the years, Dr. Austin has consulted and delivered education experiences for many multinational corporations, working with C-level executives, and he has served on numerous advisory boards, especially for technology companies. He is a member of the international jury for the CIO 100 Awards and he has advised the European Commission on “e-Competencies for Innovation.”