Sanjith Gopalakrishnan

Title: 
Assistant Professor, Operations Management; Associate, Managing Disruption (Analytics, AI and Advanced Digital Technologies)
Sanjith Gopalakrishnan
Contact Information
Email address: 
sanjith.gopalakrishnan [at] mcgill.ca
Alternate email address: 
nathalie.beaupre [at] mcgill.ca
Address: 

1001 rue Sherbrooke Ouest
Montreal, Quebec
Canada
H3A 1G5

Degree(s): 

Ph.D. (2020), University of British Columbia

B.S., M.S. (2014), Indian Institute of Technology Madras

Area(s): 
Operations Management
Office: 
528
Biography: 

I am an Assistant Professor of Operations Management at the Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University, since 2020. 

One of my main research interests is in sustainable operations and supply chain management. Specifically, I am interested in the problem of supply chain emissions, i.e., Scope 3 emissions focusing on how firms can measure and cooperate to mitigate them. 

Another stream of my research focuses on retail operations management, examining the value of coordination in assortment, fulfillment, and pricing decisions. More broadly, my work explores how cooperation and coordination across organizational boundaries can lead to more effective and responsible operations.

In parallel, I have collaborated on data analytics and sustainability projects with several organizations including Best Buy Canada, Lululemon, Procurify, Partage Club, Volvo, and Lighthouse Labs. My broader interest in urban sustainability has also led me to serve on the City of Vancouver’s Transportation Advisory Committee and on the board of the non-profit Green Teams of Canada.

Group: 
Faculty
Tenured & Tenure Track
Stream: 
Sustainability
Research areas: 
Retail Operations Management
Supply Chain Management
Sustainable and Socially Responsible Operations
Sustainable Value Chains
Selected publications: 
  1. Incentives and Emission Responsibility Allocation in Supply Chains. Sanjith Gopalakrishnan, Daniel Granot, Frieda Granot, Greys Sošić, and Hailong Cui. Management Science, Volume 67, Issue 7, July 2021. 
     
  2. Consistent Allocation of Emission Responsibility in Fossil Fuel Supply Chains. Sanjith Gopalakrishnan, Daniel Granot, and Frieda Granot. Management Science, Volume 67, Issue 12, December 2021.
     
  3. The Dark Side of Technological Modularity: Opportunistic Information Hiding During IOS Adoption in Networks. Sanjith Gopalakrishnan, Moksh Matta, and Hasan Cavusoglu. Information Systems Research, Volume 33, Issue 3, September 2022.
     
  4. Comment: The Why and How of Assigning Responsibility for Supply Chain Emissions. Sanjith Gopalakrishnan. Nature Climate Change, Volume 12, Issue 12, November 2022.
     
  5. Go Wide or Go Deep? Assortment Strategy and Order Fulfillment Performance in Online Retail. Sanjith Gopalakrishnan, Moksh Matta, Mona Imanpoor Yourdshahy, and Vivek Choudhary. Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Volume 25, Issue 3, May 2023.
     
  6. Cooperative Security Against Interdependent Risks. Sanjith Gopalakrishnan and Sriram Sankaranarayanan. Production and Operations Management, Volume 32, Issue 11, November 2023.
     
  7. Scope 3 Decarbonization Through Environmental Attribute Certificates. Michael Raynor and Sanjith Gopalakrishnan. Carbon Management, Special Issue on GHG Protocol Revision, Volume 16, Issue 1, April 2025.  
     
  8. How to Finance Community-Led Solutions. Sofia Tomljanovic, Sanjith Gopalakrishnan, Rachel Kiddell-Monroe, and Vanitha Virudachalam. Stanford Social Innovation Review, Volume 23, Issue 3, Fall 2025. 
       

Working Papers:

  1. A Model of International Trade in Carbon Mitigation Outcomes: Analyzing the Impact of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. Joint work with Harish Krishnan and Manish Tripathy. Under Review. 
     
  2. Cooperative Adoption of Supply Chain Traceability. Joint work with Sriram Sankaranarayanan and Devpriyo Ray. Under Review.
     
  3. Out-of-Stock, Out-of-Store? Estimating Cross-Store Fulfillment via Inferring Customer Journeys. Joint work with Rim Hariss, Hamidreza Moshrefi, and Saibal Ray. Under Review.
     
  4. Bike-Sharing Systems: Economic and Environmental Implications of Operational Strategies. Joint work with Daniel Granot and Frieda Granot.
     
  5. Robust Measurement of Prospect Theory Preferences. Joint work with Dale Griffin, Mahesh Nagarajan and Andrew Shields.

 

Awards, honours, and fellowships: 

Sustainability Education Faculty Fellow (2022), McGill University

SSHRC Insight Development Grant, Adoption of Traceability Technologies in Supply Chains (2023-2024), Principal Investigator: $43,730.

MITACS Accelerate, Community First Perpetual Fund: Designing Alternative Funding and Aid Distribution Model for Effective Humanitarian Health Crisis Response (2023 – 2024), Principal Supervisor: $15,000.

NSERC Discovery Grant, Analytical and Data-Driven Models for Bike-Sharing Systems (2023 – 2028), Principal Investigator: $160,000.

Fonds de Recherche du Québec – Société et Culture (FRQSC) Research Support for New Academics Grant, Bike-Sharing Systems: Economic and Environmental Implications of Operational Strategies (2023 – 2026), Principal Investigator: $57,150.

NSERC Discovery Early Career Researcher Launch Supplement (2023 – 2024), Principal Investigator: $12,500.

SSHRC Connection Grant, Analytics, AI, and Advanced Digital Technologies Initiative Inaugural Speaker Series (2023 – 2024), Co-applicant: $24,787.

MITACS Accelerate, Using Theoretical Foundations to Design and Implement Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcomes To Offset Domestic Emissions in Canada’s LNG Industry (2022 – 2023), Co-supervisor: $60,000.

Internal Desautels Writing Support Grant, Transition Risks During Adoption of Blockchain-Based Supply Chain Platforms (2022): $1,500.

Internal Social Sciences and Humanities Development Grant, Bike-Sharing Systems: Economic and Environmental Implications of Operational Strategies (2021): $5,000.

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