Karthik Natarajan

Karthik Natarajan is an associate professor of Supply Chain and Operations at the Carlson School of Management and a Fellow of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota. He received his Ph. D. in Operations from the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, where he won numerous awards for his research including the Outstanding Graduating Student Award and a competitive University-wide Fellowship. At the Carlson School, Natarajan has received several recognitions for his teaching including MS in Supply Chain Management Outstanding Teacher (2023), The Full-time MBA and Management Science Core Faculty of the Year (2023), Carlson School of Management Outstanding Teaching Award (2016, 2021) and being nominated as a finalist for the Business Week Faculty of the Year Award (2019 and 2020). His comments on global health issues, including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, have been featured in several media outlets including the New York Times, Star Tribune, PBS (Almanac), Kare11 and Fox9.

Natarajan's research interests are in the areas of social responsibility and humanitarian and non-profit operations, with a specific focus on global public health. Within this context, his works have explored several key issues including understanding the impact of uncertainty and delays in donor funding, designing incentives to patients and healthcare providers to maximize community health outcomes, and identifying supply chain strategies to lower the likelihood of stock-outs of essential health commodities (e.g., reproductive health supplies) at last-mile facilities in developing countries. He has consulted for global health agencies including USAID and also actively works with Minneapolis-based non-profits. Natarajan’s research has been published in several leading journals including Manufacturing and Service Operations Management, Production and Operations Management and Journal of Global Health.