Teacher Introductions: Master’s in Humanitarian Logistics 2024

This blog post provides a Q&A type of an introduction to some of the teachers at Supply Chain Management and Social Responsibility at Hanken School of Economics. The teachers elaborate on their academic specialisation areas

Diego Vega

What is your specialization area? Within humanitarian logistics I specialise in two things: Logistics Service Providers, either commercial or humanitarian, and temporary supply chains.

I think the best part of the humanitarian logistics program is the link with practice and theory.

How long have you taught at Hanken? I have taught for five years at Hanken, 15 years overall.

What is your favorite course and why?  The Humanitarian Logistics course, because we use different teaching methods (case studies, serious games, case competitions) and real life emergencies and crises to introduce the students to humanitarian logistics.

What is the best part about the humanitarian logistics programme? I think the best part of the humanitarian logistics program is the link with practice and theory, whether through guest lecturers, visits, real-life cases, or actual work with NGOs. This helps the students to project themselves as future humanitarian logisticians or researchers.

Virva Tuomala

What is your specialization area? I specialise in environmental sustainability in the humanitarian context, particularly waste management. I also have insight into food security, political ecology, social sustainability and urban logistics.

How long have you taught at Hanken? This is my third year at Hanken.

What is your favorite course and why? It’s hard to choose so I say “Supply chain strategy for sustainability” and “Emerging issues in SCM” are equally excellent!!

What is the best part about the humanitarian logistics programme? Supply chain management is not just about moving stuff from point a to point b, but an integral part of a lot of sustainability, development, and humanitarian processes and we cover this widely during the programme!

Mikael Öhman

I enjoy to see the growth that students go through when they shift gears from studying for credits to studying for knowledge.

What is your specialization area? I’ve worked with a lot of different things within operations- and supply chain management, mainly through a design science approach. If I’d have to put everything under a common theme it would be something like Digital solutions and novel practices in operations- and supply chain management.

How long have you taught at Hanken? I came to Hanken last October, so for little over a year now. 

What is your favorite course and why? I would of course have to say 38013 Supply Chain Management, as that’s my course, and one of the first courses you will take. What I especially enjoy in that course is to see the amazing growth that some students go through when they shift gears from studying for credits to studying for knowledge.

What is the best part about the humanitarian logistics programme? The awesome people that you will get to know. 🙂

Sarah Schiffling

What is your specialization area? I’m a huge supply chain nerd! I particularly love everything that is at the intersection of supply chains and communities. Right now, I’m working on a report to the EU on how transport disruptions affect Europe and soon I will start working on a project on the logistics of delivering humanitarian assistance to areas under siege. 

As needs grow around the world, having good people to address the multitude of challenges in humanitarian supply chains is so important.

How long have you taught at Hanken? I’ve been at Hanken for a little over a year. Moving to Finland in October was maybe not my smartest idea, but I really love it here! 

What is your favorite course and why? I love teaching the Master’s Thesis Seminar course. That is the final course our masters students take and it helps them in writing their thesis. It’s a lot of work for students but I really enjoy seeing the amazing work they do and playing a small part in helping them through this stressful time towards a successful thesis. 

What is the best part about the humanitarian logistics programme? The programme fulfils such a huge need in the humanitarian sector. Recently, we were doing a site visit at a Finnish Red Cross warehouse with our students and it was very clear how keen they were on having more trained humanitarian logisticians. As needs grow around the world and scarce funding is increasingly stretched, having good people to address the multitude of challenges in humanitarian supply chains is so important. Humanitarian logistics also has a lot of lessons for other types of logistics. Supply chain disruptions have become so common now it makes sense to learn from organisations that constantly deal with disasters.