Susan Purdum

Susan Purdum is an Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Supply Chain & Information Systems at the Smeal College of Business, Pennsylvania State University. She holds an MBA in General Management (Organizational Behavior within Manufacturing) from the University of Massachusetts (1987) and a BS in Industrial Engineering from Penn State (1980).

Her expertise spans trading partner collaboration, risk assessment, operations resilience, supplier qualification, new product development, and process simplification. She emphasizes practical applications in supply chain education, including scenario planning and systems perspectives. Prior to academia, she worked 20 years in industry roles such as engineering management at Avery Dennison, Johnson & Johnson, and The Hershey Company. She also contributed to Penn State’s Center for Supply Chain Research, collaborating with corporate clients and executive education. Additionally, she held a Faculty-in-Residence role at IBM’s Public Sector Practice to develop supply chain talent.

No academic awards or grants are explicitly listed, though her industry collaborations and executive education work highlight her engagement with practical applications. She has not listed current lab affiliations or teams in the provided text.