MIT Portugal Program Launches Distinguished Lecture Series

ESD Director Professor Yossi Sheffi gives inaugural speech

November 30, 2007

Lisbon --- On November 30, the MIT Portugal Program launched a Distinguished Lecture Series featuring leading innovators in science and technology. The inaugural lecture was given in Lisbon by Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Yossi Sheffi, Director of MIT’s Engineering Systems Division.

The lecture series is designed to highlight cutting edge work in science and technology, bringing top innovators to Portugal to share their work relevant to education, research, industry and society.

Professor Sheffi’s lecture on Engineering Systems: Broadening Engineering Education and Research took place at the Luso-American Foundation in Lisbon.

“This lecture series will illustrate innovative developments in science and technology that are closely related to the work being done within the MIT Portugal Program,” said Professor Paulo Ferrão, of Lisbon’s Institute Superior Tecnico and Director of the MIT Portugal Program in Lisbon.

Professor Sheffi’s lecture addressed Engineering Systems and its relevance to society, and served as a role model in the discussion within the Portuguese higher education system regarding innovations in institutional organizations.

An expert in system optimization, risk analysis and supply chain management, Professor Sheffi is the author of The Resilient Enterprise: Overcoming Vulnerability for Competitive Advantage. In addition, he serves as the Director of MIT’s Center for Transportation and Logistics and launched the MIT-Zaragoza program in Spain, which created a logistics university there. He is also conducting research in supply chains through the MIT Portugal Program.

“We are pleased to host Professor Sheffi as our inaugural speaker. This lecture promises to be both stimulating and informative,” said MIT Professor Daniel Roos, Director of the MIT Portugal Program at MIT.

The MIT Portugal Program is an international education and research program involving academia, government and industry. Seven universities from Portugal and MIT are involved in providing the education and research components for the program.

Engineering systems serves as the intellectual foundation for the program, integrating engineering, management sciences, economics, and policy in order to better understand, design, and implement the highly complex, technology-based systems upon which society is increasingly dependent.

The MIT Portugal Program has also announced its next distinguished lecture, which will be given in 2008 by Dr. Irving Wladawsky-Berger, formerly Vice President for Technical Strategy and Innovation of IBM, now Visiting Professor in the Engineering Systems Division at MIT and Adjunct Professor of the Tanaka Business School at Imperial College London.

For more information about the MIT Portugal program, visit the website at www.mitportugal.org.