Roberto Perez-Franco

Roberto Perez-Franco is a Research Associate at the Center for Transportation and Logistics (CTL) of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He currently serves as Director of the Supply Chain 2020 Project and as Program Manager for Latin America for the MIT Global SCALE Network.

His research focuses on supply chain strategy, particularly in developing better understanding and methods for the specification, articulation, evaluation, reformulation and implementation of a supply chain strategy. His research makes extensive use of qualitative methods, such as collaborative management research, grounded theory, case study research and survey research methods.

Since 2006 Roberto has worked on developing and documenting methods to deal with fundamental supply chain strategy issues. The resulting methods have been applied to projects in Europe, South and North America, taught as a course on supply chain strategy to dozens of graduate students at MIT and as a module in the GCLOG Program at the Latin American Center for Logistics Innovation (CLI), and adapted for use by a large multinational company.

Additionally, between 2010 and 2011 Roberto was part of the core research team for CTL's Future Freight Flows Project and was involved in developing multiple future scenarios and facilitating work sessions to derive insights for the long-term planning of logistics infrastructure through scenario thinking.

Roberto was born in Panama in 1976. He received a BSc in from the Panama Technological University in 2001, in the field of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, as valedictorian, with an IFARHU Scholarship; a MEng from MIT in 2004, in the field of Logistics and Supply Chain Management, with Fulbright and Barsa Scholarships; and a PhD from MIT in 2010, in the field of Engineering Systems, on the subject of supply chain strategy, with a Senacyt-IFARHU Scholarship and a UPS Doctoral Fellowship.