Mary Lee and George F. Duthie Chair in Engineering Logistics

J.B. Speed School of Engineering

Sunderesh Heragu, Ph.D., is a professor of industrial engineering. He also is the U of L site director for the multi-university Center for Engineering Logistics and Distribution and serves as director of the Logistics and Distribution Institute.

His current research is in supply chain management, design of next-generation factory layouts, intelligent-agent modeling of automated warehouse systems, integration of design and planning activities in advanced logistical systems and the application of radio frequency identification technology to improve intra-plant and inter-plant logistics. He has been principal investigator on several projects funded by the National Science Foundation and private industry in those research areas; he has been the main or co-investigator of funded projects totaling more than $10 million.

Heragu’s book “Facilities Design” has been adopted as a textbook by several universities, now in its third edition. He has authored or co-authored more than 150 articles and serves in editorial posts for several academic engineering journals.

He is a fellow of the Institute of Industrial Engineers; in 1998 he received the Institute of Industrial Engineers' Transactions on Design and Manufacturing Award and its Transactions Award for Best Paper published in Feature Applications (co-authored with student). He also won the 1998 and 1999 Gold Award of Excellence for leadership in Facilities Planning and Design and the 1989 New York State and United University Professions’ New Faculty Development Award, a campuswide honor at State University of New York-Plattsburgh.

Before joining U of L in 2005, Heragu had been professor of decision sciences and engineering systems at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and formerly had taught at State University of New York-Plattsburgh. He has had visiting appointments at SUNY-Buffalo, IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center and at Eindhoven University of Technology and University of Twente in the Netherlands.

He earned his doctorate in industrial engineering from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, and a master’s of business administration degree from the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada. His undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering is from University of Mysore in Hassan, India.