As the new Ryder Professor of Supply Chain Management at the Haslam College of Business, Yemisi Bolumole brings 30 years of combined industry and academia experience to the post.

She previously served as an associate professor of supply chain management at the Eli Broad College of Business at Michigan State University and the director of the transportation and logistics program in the Coggin College of Business at the University of North Florida.

Bolumole gained industry experience in the oil and gas and third-party logistics sectors in Nigeria and the United Kingdom. She began her career in the sciences before discovering supply chain and moving to roles in operations management and business development.

“My experience informs both my teaching and research,” Bolumole says. “I strongly believe in equipping students with tools that make them valuable employees.”

As she begins her first semester at UT, Bolumole says she is most excited about meeting the students and teaching supply chain decision analytics this fall.

“Every university is defined by the students,” says Bolumole. “I look forward to being back in the classroom and getting a feel for the fabric of the community.”

Outside of the classroom, Bolumole’s research focuses on transportation policy, third-party logistics and transportation outsourcing and supply chain’s talent development. She has written more than 40 publications, including book chapters, reports and articles in publications such as the Transportation Journal and Supply Chain Management Review, among others. Her awards include the Bernard J. LaLonde Prize for Best Paper Published in the Journal of Business Logistics and the AT&T Instructional Technology Award for Best Hybrid/Flipped class at Michigan State University.

Bolumole looks to translate her research into business practice and knowledge. She often leans on her industry experience, bringing applied research to inform business sectors.

“When research can be academically published, and one can also derive an actionable insight from it, then you have a win,” says Bolumole.

One of her recent projects with direct application is a transportation pricing index. Watching the COVID-19 impact on the supply chain industry as transportation managers had nowhere to turn to for predictive pricing tools, Bolumole and a colleague from Michigan State University hit on the idea of building a series of indices. These include a surface transportation index, a retail truck tonnage index, a for-hire truck ton-mile index, and others. These indices allow managers to track shifts in transportation pricing, looking behind and ahead, to assess trends.

Bolumole’s research also highlights how government policy affects efficiency in the industry, to which she published a five-part article series in Supply Chain Management Review, sharing her industry observations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Supply chain management has always mattered,” says Bolumole. “We’ve just increased the awareness of a much broader population during the pandemic.”