Nelson Maculan is an Emeritus Professor at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he was also a rector. He is full member of several academies such as the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the European Academy of Arts, Sciences and Humanities, and the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World. Prof. Maculan served as a national secretary of higher education of Brazil between 2004-2006, and he was also the president of many societies such as IFORS, ALIO and SOBRAPO. He received many honors and awards throughout his career including several honorary doctoral degrees from different universities in Brazil, Peru and France. In 2006, he received the French National Order of Merit, and in 2007 he received the Grand Cross for scientific merit (the most important medal for scientific acknowledgement awarded by the President of Brazil). In 2010, he received the Prêmio Mérito Científico, awarded by the Brazilian Computing Society in acknowledgement for the scientific contributions in Computer Science. In 2013, he received the Premio Konex Mercosur. In 2020, he became both IFORS and INFORMS fellow. Professor Maculan has published or edited many books, and has published around 150 journal papers. He has supervised around 75 Ph.D. theses, and he also supervised 159 M.Sc. dissertations. He was a visiting professor in many countries around the globe such as France, Italy, Peru, Argentine, Ecuador, United States, Canada, and China. Prof. Maculan is the current co-Editor-in-Chief of RAIRO-Operations Research and serves as Associate Editor of other international journals.