Molde University College awards honorary doctorate to Gilbert Laporte
July 13, 2023
Gilbert Laporte, HEC Montréal Professor Emeritus, was awarded a Doctorate Honoris Causa on June 9 by Molde University College, in Norway.
This is the 4th honorary doctorate he has received in his career. Indeed, he already holds 3 others, from the Eindhoven University of Technology (2016), the University of Liège (2018), and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (2021).
Molde University College is a university specializing in logistics, and it also offers higher education in business administration, information technology and health sciences. This is one of the institutions in the world with which Gilbert Laporte continues to collaborate.
The presentation of the honorary insignia took place in Molde, during the graduation ceremony for master’s and PhD students.
This latest distinction is further evidence of his very prolific career in the field of operational research and the extent of his international reputation.
About Gilbert Laporte
Professor Laporte earned a PhD in operational research from the London School of Economics in 1975.
He was a professor in HEC Montréal’s Department of Decision Sciences for 44 years and holder of the Canada Research Chair in Distribution Management from 2001 to 2020.
In addition to his duties at Molde University College, GIlbert Laporte is also a Professor at the School of Management of the University of Bath, United Kingdom, Honorary Visiting Professor at the University of Liverpool and Distinguished Professor at the Eindhoven University of Technology.
He is a member of the Interuniversity Research Centre on Enterprise Networks, Logistics and Transportation (CIRRELT) and the Group for Research in Decision Analysis (GERAD). He was Editor of Transportation Science, Computers & Operations Research, and INFOR.
He has authored or co-authored 20 books and over 600 scientific papers on combinatorial optimization, mainly in the areas of vehicle routing, location districting and scheduling.
He has received many scientific awards during his career, the most recent among which are as follows:
- The Killam Prize in Engineering (2021);
- The Euro Gold Medal from the Association of European Operational Research Societies (2022);
- One of the SEIO-BBVA Foundation prizes (2022);
- The Goodeve Medal awarded by the British Operational Research Society (2022); and
- Chevalier de l’Ordre national du Québec (Knight of the National Order of Quebec) (2023).