Speaking

I love helping audiences see the hidden science behind systems they interact with every day. Whether it's a keynote, a seminar, a podcast, or a guest lecture — I bring real stories from building optimization and AI systems at global scale, and I make complex ideas accessible without oversimplifying them.

Available formats: Keynote, Conference Talk, Seminar, Workshop, Panel, Podcast, Guest Lecture

Talk Topics

Each talk is grounded in real systems and real outcomes — not theory alone

Demand Forecasting at Scale

Your forecasting system works in the lab. But what happens when you need a million models running concurrently across six countries, handling 300% volume surges during peak? This talk covers the architectural, statistical, and organizational challenges of forecasting at massive scale.

For: Data science leaders, supply chain executives, ML engineers

Formats: Keynote, Seminar, Workshop

What your audience will take away:

  • How to architect forecasting systems that scale from hundreds to millions of concurrent models
  • Practical ensemble strategies combining classical statistics, deep learning, and tree-based methods
  • Organizational patterns for managing forecasting across global regions and planning horizons

Last Mile Logistics Optimization

The last mile is the most expensive, most complex, and most visible part of the supply chain. This talk explores the science behind optimizing package delivery across 1,000+ stations — from carrier assignment to route densification to cost estimation — and why the hardest problems are often the ones customers never see.

For: Operations leaders, logistics executives, OR practitioners

Formats: Keynote, Conference Talk, Panel

What your audience will take away:

  • How optimization and ML work together to reduce delivery costs by hundreds of millions annually
  • Why granularity matters — moving from 80 zones to 50M+ geographic blocks transforms decision quality
  • Real-world tradeoffs between speed, cost, and capacity in delivery networks

Bridging OR & ML in Production Systems

The most impactful industry systems don't choose between operations research and machine learning — they combine both. This talk draws on real examples to show how to design architectures that leverage optimization and learning together, and why the gap between these disciplines costs companies billions.

For: Technical leaders, research scientists, engineering managers

Formats: Keynote, Seminar, Guest Lecture

What your audience will take away:

  • Design patterns for hybrid OR+ML systems that actually ship and scale
  • When to use optimization vs. learning vs. both — a practical decision framework
  • How to build teams and cultures that bridge the OR-ML divide

From Research to Billion-Dollar Systems

The journey from PhD research to deployed science generating hundreds of millions in value. What changes when you move from papers to production? What stays the same? And what do the textbooks never teach you about making science work in the real world?

For: PhD students, early-career researchers, academic collaborators

Formats: Guest Lecture, Seminar, Podcast

What your audience will take away:

  • How to identify which academic research has real production potential — and which doesn't
  • The skills that matter most when transitioning from academia to industry research
  • How to measure and communicate the impact of deployed science

Capacity Planning Under Uncertainty

When demand is volatile and the cost of being wrong is enormous, how do you plan labor, vehicles, and infrastructure? This talk covers multi-stage optimization approaches to capacity planning, drawn from real systems handling millions of daily decisions.

For: OR practitioners, supply chain planners, capacity managers

Formats: Conference Talk, Seminar, Workshop

What your audience will take away:

  • Practical approaches to stochastic capacity planning that balance cost, service, and resilience
  • How to build planning systems that adapt gracefully to 300% demand surges
  • Lessons from deploying multi-stage newsvendor optimization at scale

Speaker Bio

Copy the version that fits your program

Short Bio (50 words)

Chinmoy Mohapatra is a Senior Research Scientist at Amazon, where he builds large-scale optimization and forecasting systems for last-mile logistics. His work spans demand planning, route optimization, and capacity allocation across six global regions. He holds a PhD from UT Austin and 10 USPTO patents.

Medium Bio (150 words)

Chinmoy Mohapatra is a Senior Research Scientist at Amazon, where he leads the development of optimization and forecasting systems for last-mile delivery at global scale. His systems manage over one million concurrent forecasting models and process millions of packages daily across Amazon's global delivery network. Previously, he served as Lead Operations Research Scientist at BNSF Railway, where his work on train routing optimization contributed to BNSF receiving the 2018 INFORMS Prize — the highest organizational honor in operations research. Chinmoy holds a PhD in Supply Chain and Operations Management from the University of Texas at Austin, has 10 USPTO patents, and has presented at 36+ conferences including INFORMS, POMS, and MSOM.

Long Bio (300 words)
Chinmoy Mohapatra is a Senior Research Scientist at Amazon, where he designs and leads the development of large-scale optimization and forecasting systems for last-mile delivery. His work operates at the intersection of operations research, machine learning, and computational optimization — spanning demand forecasting, capacity planning, route densification, and delivery cost estimation across Amazon's global logistics network. His systems manage over one million concurrent forecasting models across six global regions, processing millions of packages daily across 1,000+ delivery stations. He holds 10 USPTO patents spanning forecasting architectures, consensus planning, warehouse optimization, and route simulation. Before Amazon, Chinmoy served as Lead Operations Research Scientist at BNSF Railway, where he optimized train routing across a 32,500-mile network. His contributions helped BNSF receive the 2018 INFORMS Prize — the field's highest organizational honor, previously awarded to Intel, UPS, IBM, and Disney. He was also selected as an Invited Panelist at INFORMS 2024. Chinmoy holds a PhD in Supply Chain and Operations Management and an MS in Operations Research from the University of Texas at Austin. His research on subscription pricing for delivery services was published in Production and Operations Management. He actively serves the OR community as a peer reviewer, conference session chair, and judge for INFORMS competitions, and mentors 14 scientists at Amazon. He speaks on demand forecasting at scale, the intersection of OR and ML in production systems, last-mile logistics optimization, and the journey from academic research to deployed science generating real-world impact.

Speaker Assets

Headshot

High-resolution photo for event programs

Download

Speaker One-Sheet

PDF overview of topics, bio, and contact

Coming soon

Past Appearances

Selected conferences, invited talks, and panels

2025

POMS Annual Conference

Data Science, Analytics, and AI

Session Chair
2024

INFORMS Annual Meeting

Network Analytics at Amazon Last Mile Logistics

Invited Panelist
2024

POMS Annual Conference

Optimizing Demand and Capacity Planning in Last Mile Logistics

Invited Tutorial Speaker
2024

INFORMS Annual Meeting

Error-Based Forecast Refinement

Presenter
2023

INFORMS Annual Meeting

Amazon Last Mile Warehouse Operations

Session Chair & Presenter
2022

INFORMS Annual Meeting

Capacity and Coincidence Aware Package Assignment

Presenter
2019

MSOM Conference

Delivery Pricing Strategies in Retail Competition

Presenter (Peer-Reviewed)
2018

INFORMS Annual Meeting

BNSF OR Tools Showcase & Block Re-design Optimization

Presenter (INFORMS Prize Year)
2017

Indian School of Business

Optimal Subscription Pricing for Free Delivery Services

Invited Speaker
2016

MSOM Conference

Optimal Subscription Pricing for Free Delivery Services

Presenter (Peer-Reviewed)

Invite Me to Speak

I'm available for conferences, corporate events, university lectures, and podcasts. To help me prepare the best possible talk for your audience, please include:

  • Event name and date
  • Format (in-person, virtual, hybrid)
  • Expected audience and size
  • Topic of interest or preferred theme
Send a Speaking Inquiry

Typical response time: 2-3 business days