Gilvan “Gil” Souza is the Haslam Chair in Business and Distinguished Professor of Business Analytics at the Haslam College of Business at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He also holds a part-time professorship appointment at the University of Graz, Austria. Prior to coming to Haslam in 2022, Souza held appointments at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University from 2009 to 2022, and at the Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland from 2000 to 2009. He received a doctorate from the University of North Carolina in 2000, an MBA from Clemson University in 1995, and a bachelor’s in aeronautical engineering from ITA (Brazil) in 1990. For a time, he worked at Volkswagen of Brazil in new product development and product planning.

His research focuses on sustainable operations, in particular carbon footprint reduction, the circular economy, closed-loop supply chain management and renewable energy. Souza has expertise in applied optimization, lean operations and supply chain analytics. He has over 40 publications in premier refereed academic journals, is a senior editor for Production & Operations Management (POM), and a departmental editor for Decision Sciences. He wrote the book, “Sustainable Operations and Closed-Loop Supply Chains, Second Edition” (Business Expert Press), and co-edited the book, “Closed Loop Supply Chains: New Developments to Improve the Sustainability of Business Practices” (CRC Press). Souza won the Wickham Skinner Early Career Research Accomplishments award from the POM Society in 2004. A former president of the Sustainable Operations Special Interest Group of the Manufacturing & Service Operations Management Society of INFORMS, he also served as the president of the College of Sustainable Operations of POMS.