The Center for Excellence in Logistics and Distribution (CELDi) held its Annual Meeting and Research Symposium at the University of Arkansas.  Students, faculty and industry leaders from across the country gathered Feb. 29 – March 1 to discuss innovations in logistics and distribution as part of the two-day event.

Proceedings started on Thursday afternoon with an industry panel and mentoring circles co-hosted by the INFORMS student chapter. Panelists included Fereydoun Adbesh, Ph.D., senior data scientist-operations research, Walmart Global Tech; Othman Boudhoum, M.S., director- procurement business insights and analysis, Walmart Inc.; Alexander Wong, M.S., logistics engineer, J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc.; Maria Rene Arandia Jimenez, M.S., automation analyst, Tyson Foods; and Manisha Goswami, Ph.D., senior director of data science, Sam’s Club.

The evening festivities included a collaborative research discussion with faculty researchers and industry partners, which included a virtual option for the attendees. This was followed by a welcome reception and poster presentations.

Sandra Eksioglu, associate dean for research at the College of Engineering, opened the meeting on Friday morning by welcoming the guests at the Willard J. Walker Hall. The keynote speaker was Tarek Taha, senior director of engineering and technology at J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc.

Research presentations filled the rest of the morning followed by lunch and an award presentation ceremony. The Best Poster Award went to Pyam Oveys of the University of Missouri for his poster on an Intelligent Decision Support System for Steel Market Analytics. The afternoon included an industry tour of the Tyson Manufacturing Automation Center.

The successful event was rounded off with a speed mentoring session followed by a banquet dinner with keynote speaker, Russell D. Meller, principal scientist at FORTNA.