Panama is edging closer to its longtime ambition of becoming a trade hub for the Americas — with key assistance from the Supply Chain & Logistics Institute (SCL), a unit of Georgia Tech's Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering. Under an agreement negotiated with the Panamanian government, SCL will establish and operate a Logistics Innovation and Research Center in Panama by the fall of this year.

In its July 13^th issue, Global Atlanta interviewed Chelsea "Chip" White, the Schneider National Chair in Transportation and Logistics and former H. Milton and Carolyn J. Stewart Chair of Georgia Tech's H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, about his yearlong mission to Abu Dhabi, the oil-rich Persian Gulf emirate halfway around the world.

In a recent New York Times editorial, Ozlem Ergun and Julie Swann, associate professors of industrial and systems engineering and co-directors of the Center for Health and Humanitarian Logistics, along with coauthor Reginal DesRoches, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Georgia Tech, wrote about the astonishing amount of debris still left in Haiti and the need for a plan for functional accessible infrastructure

In the July 4, 2010, issue of World Trade Magazine, top academic researchers including Chip White, Don Ratliff, and John Langley, weigh in on trends that will change supply chain operations and management.

Pinar Keskinocak, co-director in the Center for Health and Humanitarian Logistics, associate director of research in the Health Systems Institute, and professor in the Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech, has been named the Mary Anne and Harold R. Nash Professor in Industrial and Systems Engineering, effective July 1, 2010.

Dr. Michael "Mike" Thomas, former school chair and professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) and former provost of Georgia Tech, has been appointed interim school chair for ISyE beginning July 1, 2010. Thomas, who served as ISyE's third school chair from 1978 to 1989, will fill the position being vacated by Chelsea C. "Chip" White III until a permanent school chair is in place.