Profile

Nagesh N. Murthy is the Roger Engemann Professor in the Department of Operations and Business Analytics at the Lundquist College of Business. His prior work experience includes faculty positions at Michigan State University and Georgia Institute of Technology. He has also held management positions with Indian Railways and Sundaram Clayton, India Ltd.

He has worked with leading administrators and faculty in engineering schools in Oregon and Southwest Washington, major manufacturing firms in the Pacific Northwest, industry consortia, and Governmental and non-profit agencies to foster University-Industry-Government partnerships for enhancing innovation, sustainability, and competitiveness for the manufacturing sector in the region. He spearheaded a benchmarking study and proposed a blueprint for the establishment of the Northwest Collaboratory for Sustainable Manufacturing (NWCSM). An overarching recommendation of the study to adopt the AMRC model championed by Boeing in Sheffield, U.K. was adopted, and subsequently evolved into the establishment of the Oregon Manufacturing Innovation Center (OMIC).

In 2023, Murthy received a grant from OMIC R&D to collaborate with its leadership team and conduct a study to develop a mission, vision, and business plan for its Additive Innovation Center (AIC), receive funds, and be designated as a Center for Innovation Excellence (CIE) in the state. Based on the proposal, AIC at OMIC R&D received a grant of one million dollars for this university-industry-government partnership to foster metal additive manufacturing capabilities in the supplier base in Oregon. AIC at OMIC R&D is now one of the five organizations established as Oregon Innovation Council (Oregon InC) Centers of Innovation Excellence (CIEs).

His passion is to engage with the industry for experiential education, research, placement, and alumni outreach. His empirical and normative research has been supported by major grants from firms, industry consortia, and government agencies. His field-based research projects have been endorsed by several industry associations such as SAE, SME, EIA, and APICS/ER, among others. His research has appeared in Management Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Production and Operations Management, Journal of Operations Management, Decision Sciences, and Naval Research Logistics, among others. In addition to publishing in premier refereed journals, he has consulted with several Fortune 100 firms and taught in both general and custom executive education programs. He has also engaged with numerous major firms to offer experiential learning opportunities for students and facilitate summer internships and jobs by incorporating plant tours, guest speakers, and real-world problem-solving projects in his operations and supply chain management courses. He has instituted an operations and business analytics industry speaker series and executive-in-residence program.

Murthy is also the cofounding faculty for the Center for Sustainable Business Practices in the Lundquist College of Business. Since he arrived at the college in 2003, he has engaged with senior executives and organized more than 175 company-sponsored projects in the areas of facility operations, supply chain management, and sustainability in operations and supply chain management using a pool of firms that include Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Tektronix, JELD-WEN, Keen, States Industries, Weyerhaeuser, Monaco Coach, Nike, Navistar, Columbia Distributing, Myers Container, Lyle, Parr Lumber, Xerox, PCC Structurals, Shindaiwa, Kettle Foods, International Paper, Spraying Systems Company, YAKIMA, NW Natural, Silver Eagle Manufacturing, gDiapers, Alsco, Rosen Aviation, Benchmade, Sunmodo, KersTech, NextStep Recycling, Organically Grown Company, Growing Solutions, Felix Instruments/CID Bio-Science, Invitrogen (now Thermo Fisher Scientific), PSC (now Datalogic), East West Tea Company (Yogi Tea), GloryBee, Lane Forest Products, Blue Star Gas, Johnson Crushers International (KPI-JCI, Astec Companies), and Bulk Handling Systems, among others.