Kamrul Ahsan

Kamrul Ahsan, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in Supply Chain Management. He has positive track record of academic research, teaching and higher degree research supervision, and academic leadership activities.

His core competence lies in advancing human-centred and environmentally sustainable supply chain management by integrating technology, organisational capabilities, and responsible business practices to address complex societal challenges. His research spans green supply chain, circular and regenerative supply chains, reverse logistics, modern slavery remediation, digital transformation of supply chain, artificial intelligence, and supply chain capability development. Across these areas, his work seeks to enhance organisational performance while generating positive social and environmental outcomes.

A central premise of his research is that people are at the heart of supply chains. Accordingly, his work emphasises investment in skills and capability development, safe and supportive working environments, employee wellbeing, human rights, ethical business practices, and responsible governance. Alongside the human dimension, his research places strong emphasis on environmental sustainability and ecosystem regeneration, examining how organisations can adopt regenerative supply chain practices, sustainable procurement, reverse logistics, and closed-loop systems to support circularity and long-term environmental resilience. His research is further strengthened by the integration of emerging technologies and organisational capabilities to enable responsible and sustainable supply chain transformation. By connecting technological innovation with human and organisational factors, his work addresses how supply chains can become more resilient, inclusive, ethical, and environmentally sustainable.

His research, teaching, and industry engagement have also contributed to policy and professional practice, informing developments in sustainable supply chains, development projects, digital and lifelong learning, and the evolving skills and capabilities required by supply chain and project management professionals.

He has a strong and sustained publication record in top-tier journals. He has published in leading academic journals such as Transportation Research Part E, International Journal of Project Management, International Journal of Logistics Management, International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Journal of Business Research, Industrial Management and Data Systems, and Journal of Environmental Management.  His work has been featured on key industry platforms, including MHD Supply Chain Solutions, the Project Management Institute (PMI) Resource Library, and the Australian Institute of Project Management (AIPM). He is serving as a member on the working group for emerging material streams (e-waste), Recycling Victoria, Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action. 

He has been teaching since 2003 in business schools in the supply chain management, project management and operations management areas. He has experience of deputy-head of department, program administration, curriculum development, and course coordination. He was program coordinator of Bachelor of Business (Supply Chain and Logistics Management) at RMIT University and program director of Master of Supply Chain Management at Victoria University.

He has work experience in multi-cultural environments within an international arena. He has worked at College of Business, Victoria University, Melbourne; School of Business, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand; Bang College of Business, KIMEP, Kazakhstan; and Industrial and Production Engineering Department, BUET, Bangladesh. He was a visiting research fellow at University of Missouri, St. Louis, USA and visiting research scholar at the School of Management, Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand. He has taught customized courses to industry professionals such as Linfox, Australia, and Beca Construction, New Zealand.

Dr Ahsan is an award-winning HDR supervisor with an extensive and outstanding track record in higher degree research supervision. His supervisory expertise encompasses a broad range of contemporary supply chain and operations management challenges. He also welcomes interdisciplinary research addressing the intersection of sustainability, technology, and supply chain management. 

Awards

• Deputy Vice-Chancellor's Award for "Excellence in Research Supervision 2025", College of Business and Law, RMIT
• Dean's Teaching Excellence Award 2024, School of AISSC, RMIT
• Nomination for 'Excellence in Research Supervision 2024', College of Business and Law, RMIT
• Best Paper Award 2025 (with Fredy Cornelio-Baltazar and Muhammad D. Abdulrahman), the 29th International Symposium on Logistics (ISL 2025), Wiesbaden, Germany
• Best Paper Award 2024 (with Vei Yie Tan and Aswini Yadlapalli), the 28th International Symposium on Logistics (ISL 2024), Thailand
• Best Paper Award 2018 (with Rezaul Shumon and Shams Rahman), the 23rd International Symposium on Logistics (ISL 2018), Bali, Indonesia
• Best Paper Award 2011, the 21st International Conference on Production Research (ICPR21), Stuttgart, Germany
• PMI Research Achievement Award, Project Management Institute NZ, 2011

Research expertise (publication) areas

• Regenerative supply chain
• Social sustainable supply chain including: Modern slavery in supply chains, Social sustainability governance, Implementation challenges 
• Environmental sustainable supply chain and reverse logistics- advancing environmental sustainability, circularity, and resilience across supply networks
• Skills and competencies of supply chain workforce, and Micro-credentials for skill development
• Technology in enhancing supply chain performance, visbility, decision-making, and capability development, including: Digital platforms, artificial intelligence, Blockchain