Citations for Companion of OR 2025
Julia Bennell
Julia Bennell has been a member of The OR Society since 1997. She is currently the Executive Dean of Leeds University Business School, having built an outstanding academic career.
Julia is an internationally recognised Operational Research Society academic. Her research focuses on optimisation in logistics, specifically in cutting and packing; vehicle routing; scheduling; network design; and heuristic algorithms. She has produced an extensive body of work, with more than 70 peer-reviewed papers, including publishing in Operational Research and Management Science, as well as three invited review papers published in the European Journal of Operational Research, the Journal of the Operational Research Society and in the Annals of Operations Research. She has delivered keynote presentations at major international conferences including EURO, IFORS, and OR Society events.
Her service to OR extends beyond her research. She has held numerous editorial, organising, and advisory roles including Vice President of the Association of European Operational Research Societies (EURO), founding member of the OR Society’s Research Panel (now the Research Committee), guest editor, stream and session organiser and invited seminar speaker. She also led the Southern OR Group for over 10 years. She has organised major international conferences including two in Southampton, and this year she served as a co-chair of the organising committee for the fiftieth anniversary conference of the Association of European Operational Research Societies, held at the University of Leeds. EURO25 was one of the largest of the 34 EURO conferences so far, attracting more than 2,000 delegates from 68 different countries, with over 200 companies and organisations attending, including around 70 from the civil service and government. The academic programme featured hundreds of papers, three plenary talks and twelve keynote speakers from around the world. Delivering such a high-profile event required vision and leadership, and Julia played a central role in ensuring its success.
Julia has also made a significant contribution to the application of OR through consultancy and collaborative research with UK Government departments, SMEs and partners. She is a qualified executive coach and mentor, and additionally serves as Honorary Consul to the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Leeds.