On April 24th 2013, Dr. Gilbert Laporte from HEC Montréal, Canada and Dr. René de Koster from Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, the Netherlands were awarded as guest professors of the School of Management, USTC. The awarding ceremony was hosted by prof. YU Yugang, Associate Dean of the school in meeting room 801. Prof. LIANGLiang, Executive Dean of the school expressed his appreciation to Prof. Laporte after he presented the Letter of Appointment, and he said that the cooperation between USTC and HEC Montréal has become been further strengthened. Prof. De Koster’s Letter of Appointment was conferred by prof. LIANG too, and he said with the appointment, Prof. de Koster will enhance the mutual collaboration and facilitate the joint programs for the research and education of the two schools. Later, Prof. Laporte delivered a presentation on his research in transportation science, and Prof. de Koster began his four-day lecture of Supply Chain Management to MBA students of the school.

Brief of Gilbert Laporte

Gilbert Laporte is an academician of the Royal Society of Canada and a professor of Operations Research at HEC Montréal. He is an editor of two important international academic magazines, Transportation Science and Operations Research. Dozens of papers were published in top academic journals including Management Science, Operations Research and Transportation Science, and he authored or coauthored 15 books and more than 400 scientific articles in combinatorial optimization, mostly in the areas of vehicle routing, location and timetabling.

He has received many scientific awards including the President's Medal, the Robert M. Herman Lifetime Achievement Award in Transportation Science from the Transportation Science and Logistics Society of INFORMS. He has been a member of the Royal Society of Canada since 1998 and Fellow of INFORMS since 2005.

Brief of René de Koster

René de Koster is a professor of logistics and operations management at the Department of Management of Technology and Innovation, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. Professor de Koster's research interests are warehousing, material handling, container terminal operations, behavioural operations and sustainable logistics.

He is the author and editor of eight books, and over 130 papers have been published in books and journals such as POM, JOM, TS, IIET, EJOR, and Interfaces. He is also the vice editor of Operation Research, member of the European Logistics Association.