Dr. Milind Dawande
- Former Professor of Operations Management
- Mike Redeker Distinguished Professor in Management (Former)
The professorship supports the research and scholarly activities of the holder in the Naveen Jindal School of Management.
“I see investiture as recognition of my efforts and success in publishing quality research and teaching. As far as day-to-day life is concerned, in terms of what I do, I think that largely remains unchanged in the sense that we continue to do our research, contribute to the broad domain of supply chain management, and try to publish in the best possible research outlets.”
As a child, Dr. Milind Dawande listened to his mother, a history professor, narrate stories about academic life. These stories had an impact on his decision to teach. Then, in his college career, he was surrounded by researchers who performed quality work.
“These researchers had a strong influence on me and therefore, honestly speaking, I never thought about any other career than research and teaching,” he said.
Dawande died May 3, 2024.
Dawande said the Naveen Jindal School of Management provided a fertile ground for quality research, which helped him grow as a researcher since his arrival in 2000. His interests included discrete optimization of problems in manufacturing and service operations, and supply chain management. Dawande applied his expertise to help solve optimization problems at several companies.
“Often there is a need to solve challenging optimization problems to enable effective decisions from the various stakeholders of the supply chain,” he said. “Identifying such opportunities and devising efficient algorithmic solutions is the goal of my work.”
Dawande said he was proud to be a part of the operations management group, which is one of the best groups in its field in the country. He was also proud of his students.
“The success of our PhD students over the years is also something that makes me really proud. They’ve been able to go out on their own, do research and publish in the top journals,” he said.
He served as an associate editor in several top journals in the field, including Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Production and Operations Management and the Journal of Scheduling.
He received his bachelor’s degree in computer science from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in India. He received a master’s in mathematics from the University of Louisiana. He earned both a master’s and a PhD in algorithms, combinatorics and optimization from Carnegie Mellon University.