We are delighted to welcome you back at Northwestern for the Spring 2025 BAC meeting!
We are extremely pleased and honored to have Dr. Ricaurte Vásquez Morales as the 43rd Distinguished Patterson Lecture speaker. Dr. Vásquez, in addition to serving a seven-year term as Administrator of the Panama Canal Authority beginning in 2019, has had an extensive and successful, 50-year career as an economist in public and private sector roles. His lecture, The Panama Canal and Global Trade: Past, Present, and Future, explores the Panama Canal across its historical, operational, and strategic dimensions and as a dynamic, future-focused asset in the global economy.
The transportation and logistics industry remains in a dynamic state—recovering from disruptions of the past few years while also adapting to new technologies, regulatory shifts, trade regimes and evolving consumer demands, against the backdrop of an uncertain outlook for global trade and the macroeconomy. Following the welcome from the Dean Schuh of the McCormick School of Engineering and the NUTC Director’s report, the BAC business meeting delves into a panel focusing on the logistics capacity to support domestic manufacturing growth. This timely topic ties into several onshoring manufacturing starts and investments announced over the past twelve months. The panel is moderated by BAC Emeritus Chair and NUTC Fellow Justin Zubrod, and features insights from experts from Deloitte, the Alliance for American Manufacturing, Boeing and BAC members Dr. Rob Martinez of Moffat & Nichol and Regis Luther formerly of AM General.
The second panel tackles trends in the retail environment resulting from shifting consumer preferences and behaviors. Panel members from Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), Simon Property Group, Target Corporation and Teradata address these trends and examine questions including: How are e-commerce and physical retail balancing out in today’s market? What challenges are traditional brick-and-mortar retailers facing in keeping up with digital-native competitors? Dr. Sunil Chopra, the IBM Professor of Operations Management and Information Systems at Kellogg School of Management will lead the discussion and share his research on shifts through and beyond Covid.
Recent NUTC freight research is also featured, highlighting key features of the Northwestern Inter Modal Analytics for Logistics Network Efficiency Dashboard software tool, developed through the INTERMODAL project funded by the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Project Agency – Energy (ARPA-E).
Rounding out the BAC Spring Meeting activities is the Industry Workshop, How AI Will Be/Is (?) Moving Freight, preceding the Patterson Lecture, and featuring six early-stage technology companies developing and deploying AI tools to augment and support freight system management.
We take great pride in our BAC, and we greatly appreciate your contribution and continued support of NUTC programs and research.
Hani S. Mahmassani
William A.
Patterson
Distinguished Chair in Transportation Director, Northwestern University Transportation Center
AGENDA
THURSDAY, MAY 8, 2025
Northwestern University Transportation Center (Chambers Hall) 600 Foster Street, Evanston, IL, 60208
7:30 AM
8:00 AM
8:10 AM 8:25 AM 8:50 AM
9:00 AM
Continental Breakfast
Call to Order – BAC Chair, Jeff Silver presiding
Welcome from the University – Christopher Schuh, Dean, Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Director’s Report – Hani Mahmassani
BAC Membership: New Member Introductions
Panel – Logistics capacity for manufacturing growth
Moderator – Justin Zubrod, Managing Partner, Justin Zubrod & Co.
Jim Brucken, Executive Specialist - Supply Chain and Govt & Public Services, Deloitte
Tom Embleton, Sr. Manager, Global Supply Chain Transportation and Logistics, The Boeing Company
Regis Luther, President & Owner, Regis Luther, LLC
Rob Martínez, Vice President | Freight and Economic Development, Moffatt & Nichol
Scott Paul, President, Alliance for American Manufacturing
10:15 AM
10:45 AM
Break
Panel – How is retail evolving to meet consumer demand?
Moderator – Sunil Chopra, IBM Professor of Operations Management and Information Systems, Kellogg School of Management
Liselle Regis Christian, VP Strategy & Operations - Global Supply Chain & Logistics, Target James Cook , Americas Director of Research, Retail, JLL
David King, Director, Industry Strategy - Retail, CPG, Hospitality, CME, Teradata
Erika Reed, Senior Director, Innovation + Customer Intelligence, Simon Property Group
12:00 PM
12:20 PM
12:30 PM
NUTC Presentation – INTERMODAL: INcreasing Transportation Efficiency and Resiliency through MODeling Assets and Logistics
Chenxi Bao, Dana Monzer, Cal Skiles, Vasileios Volakakis, Doctoral researchers, Northwestern University
Pablo Durango-Cohen, Hani Mahmassani, Principal Investigators, Northwestern University
Introduction of Students
Adjournment and Lunch
Speakers
Jim Brucken
Executive Specialist - Supply Chain Operations
Deloitte
Jim Brucken is an executive specialist with Deloitte’s Supply Chain Operations practice. Jim is currently leading Deloitte’s support to Government and Public Sector agencies such as the United States Postal Service, multiple State transit and port authorities address their biggest supply chain challenges. Prior to Deloitte, Jim was Head of Global Lead Logistics Partnerships at DHL, and Head of Global Operations for Lexmark International, a large technology product manufacturer. With over 30 years of experience, Jim has had the pleasure of working through industry transformations including early just in time manufacturing adoption in the US auto industry, implementing advanced manufacturing in China, and restructuring some of the world’s biggest logistics networks.
Sunil Chopra
IBM Professor of Operations Management and Information Systems, Professor of Operations Kellogg School of Management
Sunil Chopra is the IBM Distinguished Professor of Operations Management. He was also Interim Dean of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University from 2009-2010. From 2006 – 2009, he served as Senior Associate Dean: Curriculum and Teaching. He became a faculty member of the school in 1989. Previously he was an Assistant Professor at the Stern School of Business Administration at New York University. He has a PhD in Operations Research from SUNY Stony Brook.
Professor Chopra’s research and teaching interests are in Operations Management, Logistics and Distribution Management, design of communication networks and design of distribution networks. He has co-authored the books Managing Business Process Flows and Supply Chain Management: Strategy, Planning, and Operation. Both books are published by Prentice Hall and are used at several of the top business schools to teach Operations Management and Supply Chain Management respectively. The Supply Chain Management book was awarded the best book of the year for 2002 by the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE). Professor Chopra has won several teaching awards at Kellogg.
He has been Departmental Editor for the journals Management Science and an Associate Editor for the Decision Sciences Journal, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management and Operations Research. His recent research has focused on risk management in supply chains. He has also studied distribution systems in a variety of companies trying to identify market, manufacturing, and product characteristics that drive the structure of a supply chain.
James Cook
Americas Director of Research, Retail JLL
Based in Indianapolis, IN, James is the Senior Director of Americas Retail Research. He oversees the production of national retail research and serves as the voice of retail research in the region. He speaks regularly at events, with clients and the media about how retail real estate will change with tomorrow’s economy.
James also hosts the Where We Buy podcast, a show about retail and real estate. Where We Buy was awarded a Gold MAXI award from the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC). The show was listed by FeedSpot as one of the Best Retail Podcasts You Must Follow in 2022. James also hosts the
live video show Everything We Know About Retail.
Experience:
Before joining JLL, James was the National Director of Analytics at Xceligent, a national commercial property research firm. In that role, he recruited and managed a new Analytics department, a national team of regional analysts tasked with producing quarterly market reports and thought leadership pieces.
James has worked in the commercial real estate industry since 1999, beginning as a Phoenix market research analyst with Insignia/ESG. He has served as U.S. Director of Research at Colliers International, where he oversaw the commercial property research services. Before that, he built the Colliers national GIS platform as the GIS Manager for the U.S. region. Education and affiliations:
James received a Bachelor of Arts degree from West Chester University of Pennsylvania. James is an active participant in the International Council of Shopping Centers’ North American Research Task Force. He was the chair of the 2015 Research Connections Conference. He has served on multiple NAIOP and ULI committees.
Liselle Regis Christian is the Vice President of Strategy and Operations for Target’s Global Supply Chain and Logistics organization, responsible for leading strategic planning, business operations, and strategy execution. Prior to her current role at Target, Liselle served as Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer at Shipt, a wholly owned subsidiary of Target, as a senior leader on the corporate strategy team at David’s Bridal, and as a management consultant at Kearney and Nielsen, where she was responsible for leading and executing global insights, strategy and business transformation programs for Fortune 100 consumer goods and retail companies.
Liselle is passionate about driving and accelerating positive organizational change by helping teams link strategic vision to flawless execution that drives tangible business outcomes. She is known as a strategic thinker and passionate and authentic leader who works tirelessly alongside her teams to deliver top and bottom-line business results. Outside of Target, she brings that same passion to non-profit organizations whose missions are aligned with providing educational opportunities and access to underrepresented students in urban communities, and in her role as member of the Yale University Alumni Schools Committee.
She has been honored by the Birmingham Business Journal as a 2021 Women to Watch and holds a B.A. in Ethics, Politics and Economics from Yale University, and an M.B.A. from the University of Michigan, Ross School of Business. Originally hailing from the twin-island republic of Trinidad and Tobago, Liselle lives in Birmingham AL with her husband and two dogs. She is an avid traveler and voracious reader – spending most her free time exploring new cultures through, trips, books, music, and food.
Tom Embleton
Sr. Manager Global Supply Chain Transportation and Logistics
The Boeing Company - Transportation Operations
Tom Embleton has been a part of the Global Supply Chain Transportation and Logistics organization since November 2022. This organization has responsibility, accountability, and authority to manage logistics services for Boeing Commercial Airplanes.
In Tom’s current role, he leads the Transportation Operations organization. The organization is com -
prised of over 75 employees and leaders and has a wide range of transportation and logistics responsibilities. This includes responsibility for export compliance support and for oversight of dangerous goods in transportation. Tom’s organization implements and expands the cross-dock network, assists with supplier-to-supplier shipments, and coordinates outbound logistics. His organization also manages transportation contracts, monitors provider performance, and has freight audit responsibilities. Transportation Operations has a dedicated team of packaging engineers that design packaging and ensure adherence to packaging standards. Tom also leads a team that maintains 24/7 operations, handling emergent operations and tracking high-visibility shipments for Airplane Programs. Tom led several other Transportation and Logistics teams during his tenure with The Boeing Company.
Prior to joining Boeing, Tom was with FedEx, where he spent over 25 years supporting the Puget Sound region. His roles at FedEx included Senior Operations Manager for Air, Ground, and Freight Services.
David King
Senior Partner, Industry Consulting, Retail, CPG and Hospitality
Teradata
David King is a Director, Industry Strategy for Teradata’s Worldwide Analytics team. His focus areas are Retail, CPG, Hospitality, and Telecom. David also co-led our GenAI Product Recommendations Solution Accelerators. Prior to Teradata, he led large Retail and Digital analytics, personalization, customer experience, and strategy teams at AT&T. He started his career at McKinsey & Company in Atlanta and Sydney. His BA Chemistry is from UNC-Chapel Hill and MBA is from Stanford.
Regis Luther
President & Owner
Regis Luther LLC
Regis is the previous CTO at AM General, the manufacturer of the Military HMMWV and JLTV. Regis has held similar executive positions at BAE Systems, and International Truck and Engine Company. Regis currently serves on several Fiduciary, and advisory Boards, including ITEN Defense, a survivability supplier for defense and commercial products. Regis has a Masters in Chemical Engineering from The Johns Hopkins University, and an Executive MBA from the University of Houston, in addition to holding 8 patents, 4 approved, 4 pending, in survivability and energy. Regis has also completed the Directors Consortium, a Board of Directors training offered by the University Consortium of Stanford, University of Chicago and Dartmouth. Regis is an ASE certified Truck Technician, holds a commercial truck drivers licence (CDL) and is a Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do, in addition to being active in biking, hiking, weight lifting and yoga.
Hani Mahmassani
Director, Transportation Center
William A. Patterson Distinguished Chair in Transportation Northwestern
Dr. Hani S. Mahmassani is Director of the Transportation Center, and the William A. Patterson Distinguished Professor in Transportation at Northwestern University, which he joined on September 1, 2007, with joint appointments in the McCormick School of Engineering and the Kellogg School of Management. Prior to Northwestern, he served on the faculties of the University of Maryland and the University of Texas at Austin. He has over 35 years of professional, academic and research experience in the areas of multimodal systems modeling and optimization, freight and logistics systems, autonomous vehicles, data science and predictive analytics in transportation and logistics.
Mahmassani has served as principal investigator on over 150 funded research projects sponsored by international, national, state, and metropolitan agencies and private industry. He is past editor-in-chief
of Transportation Science, senior editor of IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, and founding associate editor of Transportation Research C: Emerging Technologies. He is a past president of the Transportation Science Section of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences, and a past President of the International Association for Travel Behavior Research. He serves on the Board of Advisors to the Panama Canal Authority, and Prince Albert of Monaco’s Digital Transformation Advisory Council. He was the recipient of a Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture of the American University of Beirut in 2006, the Intelligent Transportation Systems Outstanding Application Award of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2010, the Transportation Research Board’s Thomas Deen Distinguished Lectureship in 2016, and the inaugural Martin Beckmann Transformative Research in Network Modeling in 2019. He was elected Emeritus member of the Transportation Research Board (of the National Academies) committees on Telecommunications and Travel Behavior, Transportation Network Modeling Committee, and Traveler Behavior and Values Mahmassani received his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in transportation systems and MS in transportation engineering from Purdue University.
Rob Martínez
Vice President, Freight and Economic Development
Moffatt & Nichol
Rob Martínez serves as Vice President for Freight and Economic Development at Moffatt & Nichol, a global infrastructure advisory, engineering and design firm, with services in marine terminals, transportation, energy, environmental, federal and urban development. Prior to M&N, he served for twenty-four years with Norfolk Southern Corporation, most recently as Vice President Business Development and Real Estate, with responsibility for industrial development, international business development, real estate and forecasting. Earlier in his career, Martínez served as Secretary of Transportation for the Commonwealth of Virginia with oversight for VDOT (highways), the Department of Rail and Public Transportation, the Department of Aviation, DMV and Virginia Port Authority. During the Administration of George H.W. Bush, Martínez was Deputy Maritime Administrator and was promoted by President Bush to Associate Deputy Secretary of Transportation, with a focus on intermodalism. Martínez holds a Ph.D. from Yale University.
Scott Paul President Alliance for American
Manufacturing
Scott is a sought-after expert on trade and manufacturing matters, testifying before numerous congressional committees and penning op-eds for The New York Times and other leading publications. He authored a chapter in the 2013 book ReMaking America and has written extensively about Alexander Hamilton’s role in forming U.S. national economic policy. Scott also hosts the The Manufacturing Report podcast. Scott is a past board chair of the National Skills Coalition and sits on the Board of Visitors of the Political Science Department at the Pennsylvania State University. He also is on the Advisory Board of Indiana University’s Manufacturing Policy Initiative. Scott earned a B.A. in Foreign Service and International Politics from Penn State and an M.A. with honors in Security Studies from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.
Erika has over 20 years of combined professional experience in retail real estate and transportation engineering. As Senior Director of Innovation at Simon, she contributed to the industry-first launch of SimonSearchTM, a real-time inventory visibility platform for shopping centers. She continues to innovate the fulfillment of goods and services, traffic flow for customers and vehicles, last-mile delivery including drones, security both cyber and physical, and overall customer experience and loyalty.
Erika commenced her tenure at Simon in property management where she was instrumental in the grand opening of 12 properties, notably the first Simon property in Canada, Toronto Premium Outlets. In addition, she is an Advisor at Craft Ventures, a leading venture capital firm for B2B SaaS solutions. Erika started her career at Parsons Brinkerhoff, acquired by WSP Global, as lead civil highway engineer planning, designing, and managing construction of various highway and bridge projects in New Jersey. Erika holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Bucknell University, M.E.M. from Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering, and M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management.
Jeff Silver Chief Executive Officer Mastery Logistics Systems
Jeff Silver joined American Backhaulers in 1984, fresh out of the University of Michigan with an undergrad degree in Economics. He helped grow the business by focusing on customer interactions and the sales force, training, and designing its ground-breaking technology. When ABH was sold to CH Robinson, Jeff spent a year helping to integrate the businesses and working to adapt the ABH system to the needs of the global company, and then retired. During his retirement, Jeff completed an MBA at Michigan as well as a Masters of Engineering in Logistics at MIT. In 2006, he and his wife Marianne, who created the methods of recruiting and training and focus on culture that have been copied by many in the industry, co-founded Coyote Logistics, which he led through its acquisition by UPS in 2015, after which he spent several years working with the broader UPS group on automation and advanced technology.
Justin Zubrod Managing Partner
Justin Zubrod & Company LLC
Justin Zubrod, Sr. is managing partner of Justin Zubrod & Company, LLC, a professional services firm focused on the logistics and transportation sectors. He has previously served as a leader of the commercial transportation management consulting practices at Booz & Company, Booz Allen Hamilton, and A.T. Kearney, Inc. His specialty is strategy and turnaround work serving leading companies in the rail, package, motor carrier, air, and logistics sectors. Zubrod’s clients comprise operators, investors, law firms, and public agencies throughout the world. He received his undergraduate degree at the University of Maryland and MBA at Northwestern University. Zubrod is the former chair of the Northwestern University Transportation Center Business Advisory Council.
MEMBER DIRECTORY
Leadership Level
Sustaining Level
Association Level
Deema Adada
Co-founder & CEO | BiggerPicture deema@biggerpicture.co 248.563.9101
David Arganbright
VP | Government Affairs | OmniTRAX Inc. darganbright@omnitrax.com 215.205.0202
Mark Baxa
President and CEO | CSCMP msbaxa@cscmp.org 314.614.1733
Jason Birnbaum
Chief Information Officer | United Airlines, Inc. jason.birnbaum@united.com 872.825.4550 630.512.1411
L. Price Blackford
Managing Director | Scott-Macon Ltd. pblackford@scott-macon.com 646.572.2409 917.861.7772
John D. Bowe
Principal | American Maritime Group, LLC johnbowe22@gmail.com 925.631.0590 510.813.9574
Andrew Boyle
Strategic Advisor, Past Co-President | Boyle Transportation, an Andlauer Healthcare Group andrew.boyle@boyletransport.com 978.670.3409 978.430.9942
Joe Boyle
Vice President, U.S. Transportation | UPS jboyle@ups.com
Mike Brennan President | Farmer’s Fridge mbrennan575@gmail.com 847.971.8939
Reconstructing the Temporal Landscape of Gene Regulation in Aging
National Institute of Aging
Reid, Kathryn; Braun, Rosemay; Zee, Phyllis
Subproject for Dr. Kristen Knutson
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
Reid, Kathryn; Abbott, Sabra Margaret; Knutson, Kristen
Rodent Research Standard Housing Mission: Multidisciplinary Approach to Understanding Spaceflight Responses
NASA Ames Research Center
Turek, Fred; Vitaterna, Martha
Mechanisms Underlying Sleep Disturbances in Parkinson’s Disease
U.S. Army Medical Research and Material Command
Turek, Fred
Circadian Laboratory (Turek and Vitaterna) for Normalizing Timing of Rhythms Across Internal Networks of Circadian Clocks (NTRAIN)
Air Force Research Laboratory
Turek, Fred; Vitaterna, Martha; Zee, Phyllis
Effects of Partial Gravity on Multi-System Mammalian Physiology: Microbiome and Related Systems
NASA Ames Research Center
Turek, Fred; Vitaterna, Martha
Training Grant in Circadian and Sleep Research
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
Turek, Fred; Vitaterna, Martha; Zee, Phyllis
National Synthesis Center for the Emergence in the Molecular and Cellular Science (NCEMS)
Pennsylvania State University, National Science Foundation
Uzzi, Brian
FMSG: Cyber: Learning Foundation Models for Manufacturing Design Automation
National Science Foundation
Zhu, Qi; Cao, Jian; Chen, Wei; Guo, Ping
Collaborative Research: DESC: Type I: PLEX: Building Future-Proof Learning-Enabled Cyber-Physical Systems with Cross-Layer Extensible and Adaptive Design
CPS: Medium: Batteryless Sensor Enabling Smart Green Infrastructure
National Science Foundation
Zhu, Qi; Hester, Josiah; Wells, George
NUTC STAFF
HANI S. MAHMASSANI
Director
masmah@northwestern.edu
847.491.2282
BRETON JOHNSON
Senior Associate Director
bretj@northwestern.edu
847.491.2194
ANDREA CEHAIC
Assistant Director
andrea.cehaic@northwestern.edu
847.491.2280
TORENE HARVIN
Senior Program Coordinator torene.harvin@northwestern.edu
847.491.7287
KATHERINE GORNEY
Research Project Coordinator katherine.gorney @northwestern.edu 847. 491. 2275
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY TRANSPORTATION CENTER
600 Foster Street, Evanston, IL
847.491.7287
tcinfo@northwestern.edu
transportation.northwestern.edu
Director & Staff
About the Business Advisory Council
Unequaled by any academic transportation advisory board in the country, the Northwestern University Transportation Center (NUTC) Business Advisory Council (BAC) has long been a major force behind the Center’s success. The BAC is structured through four distinct levels of membership: Leadership, Sustaining, Individual, and Association. Each category carries with it a set of membership benefits, as well as a suggested level of commitment and financial support for Transportation Center research, education, and outreach initiatives.
All BAC members enjoy access to Northwestern’s world-class faculty, opportunities for networking with industry peers, invitations to and involvement in special programs and events, insights into cutting-edge research and industry trends, discounted tuition fees for the Center’s Executive Education Series, and access to Northwestern’s bright student population and renowned Transportation Library.
The BAC meets twice yearly on the Evanston campus to foster an exchange of ideas among its members and Center faculty, staff, and students. The meetings are designed to explore the areas of interest and relevance to BAC member companies. Each meeting features working sessions, panel discussions, and speaker presentations, as well as opportunities for more informal networking and exchange.
About the Transportation Center
For the last six decades, the Northwestern University Transportation Center (NUTC) has proudly conducted research, provided education and performed outreach for the benefit of the Northwestern community and transportation networks worldwide.
