Dr. Matthias Winkenbach is a Principal Research Scientist at MIT, where he serves as the Director of Research of the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics. In this role, he manages CTL’s research activities and shapes the center’s strategic agenda of creating supply chain and logistics innovation and driving it into practice in collaboration with our global network of industry partners.
Dr. Winkenbach is also the founder and director of the MIT Computational Analytics, Visualization, and Education (CAVE) Lab, a research group focused on the development of human-centric user interfaces to make advanced supply chain analytics more accessible to decision-makers through interactive visualization and natural language controls. Further, he is the director of the MIT Megacity Logistics Lab, a research group focusing on applications of operations research and machine learning methods to the design and planning of future logistics systems and last-mile distribution networks.
Dr. Winkenbach received his Ph.D. in Logistics and his Masters in Business with specializations in Finance and Economics at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management in Germany. He also studied at NYU Stern School of Business in New York as well as at the École des Hautes Études Commerciales (HEC) in Montréal, Canada. His doctoral dissertation focused on the optimal design of multi-tier urban delivery networks with mixed fleets. His work was closely linked to a research project with the French national postal operator La Poste. His current research interests are focused around the strategic design, tactical planning and real-time operation of intelligent future logistics systems at the intersection of Operations Research, Machine Learning and Human Decision Making.
Dr. Winkenbach won the Science Award for Supply Chain Management of the German Logistics Association (BVL) in 2014, was amongst the finalists for the 2015 Daniel H. Wagner Prize for Excellence in Operations Research Practice, and received the Transportation Science Meritorious Service Award in 2022. He frequently publishes in high-impact peer-reviewed academic journals, well as practitioner-oriented outlets such as the Wall Street Journal or the Sloan Management Review. He is currently an Associate Editor for Transportation Science, one of the leading academic journals in his field of research.
Dr. Winkenbach frequently consults with major industry players as well as startups at any stage of their development on strategic issues related to technology and analytics in supply chain, logistics, transportation, and mobility. His previous professional work includes working with Volkswagen in South Africa, Deutsche Telekom in Germany, McKinsey & Company in the United States and Germany, as well as various other projects in the mining, shipbuilding, consulting, and logistics industries.
