Keynote Speakers

Francisco Saldanha da Gama, Professor at Sheffield University Management School (UK)

Keynote Title: “Future OR with AI and emerging new technologies”

Francisco Saldanha da Gama is Chair of Supply Chain Management at Sheffield University Management School (UK) where he is also the head of the Centre for Applied Research in Logistics, Operations, and Supply Chain Management. His research interests include Operations Research, Supply Chain Management, Logistics, Decision-Making under Uncertainty, Facility Location, and Project Scheduling.

Over the past three decades, he has accumulated a vast teaching experience spanning multiple topics in Operations Management, Operations Research, Applied Probability, and Statistics. He has led/co-led multiple research projects at national and international levels having also supervised/co-supervised/hosted more than 20 PhD students/postdoc researchers. He has been awarded a dozen prizes and honors, the most recent being the “Omega, The International Journal of Management Science, Best Paper Award, 2024”. He is a member of several international scientific organizations, such as the EURO Working Group on Locational Analysis, of which he is one of the past coordinators. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Computers & Operations Research, Consulting Editor of Social Sciences & Humanities Open, and a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of the Operational Research Society (UK), Operations Research Perspectives, International Journal of General Systems, and Algorithms..

Mehdi Akbarian, VP of Product and Strategy at Einride

Keynote Title: “Sustainable Freight at Scale: The Role of Digitalization, Electrification, and Autonomous Systems”

Mehdi Akbarian is a product leader and researcher specializing in digital and electric freight. He holds a Ph.D. from MIT and works at the intersection of sustainability, technology commercialization, and data-driven decision-making, helping enterprises transition to low-emission transport solutions.

As VP of Product and Strategy at Einride, he has led the development of digital and electrification technologies, advancing economic modeling, transport planning, and AI-driven analytics. His work has shaped industry methodologies for scaling electric freight and optimizing system efficiency.

Previously, he worked in sustainable infrastructure research, collaborating with government agencies, academia, and industry partners to develop data-driven strategies for transport and energy systems. He has contributed to EU-funded research projects on freight electrification, commercial viability, and scaling sustainable transport.