Global Supply Chain (Fr)Agility

Linda Barrington is the Associate Dean for External Relations in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business as well as the executive director of Cornell’s Institute for Compensation Studies. Dr. Barrington’s published research addresses employee compensation, gender issues in the workplace, employees with disabilities, and workforce demographics.

Oliver Gao is a professor in the graduate fields of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Systems Engineering, Cornell Institute of Public Affairs (CIPA), and Air Quality in Earth and Atmospheric Science at Cornell University. His research focuses on transportation systems, environment (especially air quality and climate change), energy, and sustainable development. Dr. Gao also studies sustainable food systems, quantifying and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from food supply chains. His research projects include work focused on green supply chain initiatives, including alternative commuter transportation models which are more convenient and energy efficient.

Vishal Gaur is the Anne and Elmer Lindseth Dean and Emerson Professor of Manufacturing Management at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business. Gaur earned his PhD from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania (2001), MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (1995), and BTech in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (1993).

As associate dean for MBA programs from 2014 to 2019, Gaur launched the Digital Technology Immersion, in which MBA candidates and students earning their MPS in data science or applied statistics develop skills in coding, databases, and advanced analytics, and learn to leverage them to tackle challenges faced by leading companies.

He also created and served as the program director for the Master of Science in Business Analytics (MSBA) program offered through eCornell, which provides working professionals a hands-on opportunity to learn about data analytics tools essential to analyzing and optimizing business decisions.

Gaur’s research focuses on data-driven analysis of problems in supply chains, retailing, e-commerce, and marketplace operations, and his work was recognized with the Wickham Skinner Early Career Research Accomplishments Award from the Production and Operations Management Society in 2006. He served as a department editor for Management Science during 2014-2021, and his current projects involve the reduction of food waste and supply chain risk. He teaches graduate courses in operations management, digital business and retail operations, and data analysis.

Gaur is the 2022 recipient of the Class of 1992 Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching, the 2020 recipient of the Stephen Russell Distinguished Teaching Award, and a three-time winner of the Johnson School’s Core Faculty Award, the Cornell-Tsinghua Dual Degree MBA Gravitas Award in 2021, the Johnson Cornell Tech Core Faculty Award by the graduating class of 2017, and honorable mention in the George B. Dantzig Dissertation Award Competition in 2001.

Well-known among students for the care and attention he gives to his teaching, he currently teaches the Semester in Strategic Operations MBA immersion course, where students go on site visits and work on client projects in topics such as industry 4.0, traceability, and sales and operations planning.

Before joining Johnson, he was an assistant professor at the NYU Stern School of Business from 2001 to 2007 and a visiting associate professor at Harvard Business School from 2007 to 2008.