Now is the time for college graduations and, in Massachusetts, over the past several days, we have been the scene for numerous ones -- from the UMass Amherst graduations to graduations in Boston and to even the Smith College graduation last weekend at which Arianna Huffington gave the commencement address. And Oprah Winfrey will be speaking at Harvard University's commencement on May 30.
Last, year, I was honored to give the commencement address at the Master's degree graduate commencement ceremony at the University of Gothenburg's School of Business, Economics and Law on June 14, 2013. My speech was on Life as a Network and it can be accessed here.
A writeup on the speech appeared in the UMass Amherst's In the Loop.
When I received an invitation a few months ago from Dean Maureen McKelvey of the University of Gothenburg to give this year's commencement speech, I immediately agreed.
Giving a commencement speech in the US is one thing -- giving a commencement speech in another country is a truly special experience.
I had the great experience of giving the commencement speech at the Isenberg School's undergraduate commencement in May 2003, which took place at the Mullins Center, so I can say that I have given such speeches on 2 continents.
This will be my fifth visit/stay in Gothenburg, since 2012, and, as a Visiting Professor of Operations Management there, through its unique Visiting Professorship Programme, Gothenburg, Sweden has become my second home.
I will be delivering my commencement speech on June 12, 2013 in Gothenburg and my theme this year will be Leadership.
I will speak on what makes a great leader -- one of many themes that I have been writing about on this blog and will also bring personal experiences into the text.
I plan on emphasizing resiliency, creativity, communications, diversity, and integrity, and, as I did last year, I will share with you photos from the ceremony.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Surviving Prejudice as a Woman Programmer and Academic by Losing Yourself in Your Work
Today, we had our Isenberg School of Management PhD picnic in North Amherst on a cool and rainy Sunday afternoon.
I always feel that it is very important to show up to such events to support the doctoral students and, despite the weather, it was wonderful to see many of our students enjoying one another's company, conversing with the faculty who showed up (a few actually did), and huddling in the pavilion for some warmth.
This was a nice break, despite the unfortunate weather, since I had spent hours working on a plenary talk, Network Economics and the Internet, that I will be giving in Athens next month. I had been "in the flow" for hours, consumed by the task at hand and had made great progress -- quite enjoyable and rewarding.
Upon my return from the picnic, I glanced over The New York Times, and became intrigued by the OpEd by Ellen Ullman, How to be a `Woman Programmer.'
I have written about working in industry as a computer programmer, while pursuing my Master's degree at Brown University in Applied Math (thanks to the companies that paid my way). and often write about how much I enjoy the research that I do, which necessarily requires algorithm development and implementation -- which means computer programming -- to solve problems that we build mathematical models for.
Ullman writes in her OpEd (and I concur with her) that The first requirement for programming is a passion for the work, a deep need to probe the mysterious space between human thoughts and what a machine can understand; between human desires and how machines might satisfy them. The second requirement is a high tolerance for failure. programming is the art of algorithm design and the craft of debugging errant code. In the words of the great John Backus, inventor of the Fortran programming language: “You need the willingness to fail all the time. You have to generate many ideas and then you have to work very hard only to discover that they don’t work. And you keep doing that over and over until you find one that does work.”
Computer programmers are necessarily resilient!
Ullman writes of the challenges that she faced during 20 years as a programmer and how today women may be facing even more virulent discrimination and prejudice and the numbers reflect that women are underrepresented in the computer science fields and industry. She speaks of venture capitalists looking for those that resemble them to invest in.
Sad to say, I feel this prejudice even as a holder of a chaired professorship. Ullman speaks of the disregard and the invisibility and I can attest (colleagues can confirm) that requests for information at even a departmental level fall on deaf ears and no response is received, despite repeated attempts.
Ullman beautifully concludes her piece with the following:
What will save you is tacking into the love of the work, into the desire that brought you there in the first place. This creates a suspension of time, opens a spacious room of your own in which you can walk around and consider your response. Staring prejudice in the face imposes a cruel discipline: to structure your anger, to achieve a certain dignity, an angry dignity.
Indeed, all we can do is to lose ourselves in our work and maybe that is what instills the strange responses, whether of silence or of disregard -- we can and will continue to lose ourselves in research that we truly believe in.
And with 3 female doctoral students, I have to serve as a role model.
I always feel that it is very important to show up to such events to support the doctoral students and, despite the weather, it was wonderful to see many of our students enjoying one another's company, conversing with the faculty who showed up (a few actually did), and huddling in the pavilion for some warmth.
This was a nice break, despite the unfortunate weather, since I had spent hours working on a plenary talk, Network Economics and the Internet, that I will be giving in Athens next month. I had been "in the flow" for hours, consumed by the task at hand and had made great progress -- quite enjoyable and rewarding.
Upon my return from the picnic, I glanced over The New York Times, and became intrigued by the OpEd by Ellen Ullman, How to be a `Woman Programmer.'
I have written about working in industry as a computer programmer, while pursuing my Master's degree at Brown University in Applied Math (thanks to the companies that paid my way). and often write about how much I enjoy the research that I do, which necessarily requires algorithm development and implementation -- which means computer programming -- to solve problems that we build mathematical models for.
Ullman writes in her OpEd (and I concur with her) that The first requirement for programming is a passion for the work, a deep need to probe the mysterious space between human thoughts and what a machine can understand; between human desires and how machines might satisfy them. The second requirement is a high tolerance for failure. programming is the art of algorithm design and the craft of debugging errant code. In the words of the great John Backus, inventor of the Fortran programming language: “You need the willingness to fail all the time. You have to generate many ideas and then you have to work very hard only to discover that they don’t work. And you keep doing that over and over until you find one that does work.”
Computer programmers are necessarily resilient!
Ullman writes of the challenges that she faced during 20 years as a programmer and how today women may be facing even more virulent discrimination and prejudice and the numbers reflect that women are underrepresented in the computer science fields and industry. She speaks of venture capitalists looking for those that resemble them to invest in.
Sad to say, I feel this prejudice even as a holder of a chaired professorship. Ullman speaks of the disregard and the invisibility and I can attest (colleagues can confirm) that requests for information at even a departmental level fall on deaf ears and no response is received, despite repeated attempts.
Ullman beautifully concludes her piece with the following:
What will save you is tacking into the love of the work, into the desire that brought you there in the first place. This creates a suspension of time, opens a spacious room of your own in which you can walk around and consider your response. Staring prejudice in the face imposes a cruel discipline: to structure your anger, to achieve a certain dignity, an angry dignity.
Indeed, all we can do is to lose ourselves in our work and maybe that is what instills the strange responses, whether of silence or of disregard -- we can and will continue to lose ourselves in research that we truly believe in.
And with 3 female doctoral students, I have to serve as a role model.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Tips on Publishing Journal Articles -- PhD Workshop
I have been busy preparing a series of presentations that I will be giving soon in Europe.
The first one I will deliver on June 3, 2013 at the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.
My presentation is entitled: Reflections of an Experienced Researcher on Presenting and Publishing Quantitative Research, and it is one of several presentations that will be given at the Nordlog Doctoral Workshop as part of the 25th NOFOMA Conference, Gothenburg, Sweden.
The full list of invited speakers is below:
Some Background Where Do Research Ideas Come From?
What is Your Philosophy of Research?
What About Collaboration?
What About Writing a Publishable Paper?
Why the Hard Work is Worth It
Some Final Points.
In my presentation, I will also discuss some of the competitive challenges associated with journal publishing from the point of journal article supply and demand (and hope) of authors for publication.
I will also provide strategies for journal selection, revising a paper, etc., and emphasize that one should never give up hope if you believe in your work and to keep at it. This was a topic of a previous post of mine -- thanks to all of you who wrote me that you very much appreciated this blogpost.
The montage below has photos of several Nobel laureates in Economic Sciences who had their papers rejected and some of the very same papers, after they were eventually published, became classics. And there are others with the same experiences!
Of the above laureates, I had met Paul Samuelson when I was at MIT as a Visiting Professor and Scholar over a 2 year period and I met Harry Markowitz in an elevator at an INFORMS Conference. Kenneth Arrow I had met at a workshop at Stanford University at which my dissertation advisor, Stella Dafermos, also took part. As for Paul Krugman, I enjoy his writings, including his OpEds in The New York Times and our points of additional intersections include that he is an RSAI Fellow, and so am I.
The PhD Workshop should be very interesting and fun, since we are even instructed to bring swimsuits and a towel for a sauna event in the evening!
The first one I will deliver on June 3, 2013 at the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.
The full list of invited speakers is below:
- Dr. Alex Ellinger, editor of the Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management
- Professor Anna Nagurney, University of Massachusetts Amherst
- Professor Michael Browne, University of Westminster
- Professor Patrik Jonsson, Chalmers University of Technology.
Some Background Where Do Research Ideas Come From?
What is Your Philosophy of Research?
What About Collaboration?
What About Writing a Publishable Paper?
Why the Hard Work is Worth It
Some Final Points.
In my presentation, I will also discuss some of the competitive challenges associated with journal publishing from the point of journal article supply and demand (and hope) of authors for publication.
The montage below has photos of several Nobel laureates in Economic Sciences who had their papers rejected and some of the very same papers, after they were eventually published, became classics. And there are others with the same experiences!
The PhD Workshop should be very interesting and fun, since we are even instructed to bring swimsuits and a towel for a sauna event in the evening!
Monday, May 13, 2013
Be an Advocate for Female Researchers
I was (very) pleasantly surprised and pleased when the Editor of a journal in Operations Research recently approached me to suggest names of female researchers who might be added to the editorial board as Associate Editors since the volume of submissions to the journal was growing dramatically.
The Editor wrote me since he knows that I care about (and try to act accordingly) promoting the visibility of female researchers and this is clearly a substantive way in which visibility and reputation can both be increased.
This got me to thinking about being an Advocate vs. a Mentor, a topic that has been receiving a lot of attention in corporations and, also, in scientific and academic circles, but which needs more.
According to this report, which cites several Harvard Business School publications, the hallmark of an Advocate (sometimes referred to as a Sponsor), is the inherent public nature in that advocates "stick their necks out" and, while a lot of mentoring can be done behind the scenes, advocates put their names next to your performance and make their support highly visible.
Hence, your advocate should promote your visibility, advocate for your next promotion, make connections for you with senior leaders, and connect you with career opportunities. Of course, an advocate, is still a mentor, and can offer career advice.
Dr. Joan M. Herbers, the President of the Association for Women in Science (AWIS) in an interview on Advocating for Women in Science, offers this excellent advice:
One mentor is not enough; in addition to mentors, cultivate sponsors – senior people of influence who will promote your ideas and support your career through nominations to key symposia, society awards, and the like.
I also believe that administrators could and should be Advocates but, sometimes, and this may be due to academic politics, may try to just "work behind the scenes" whereas sending out an announcement to faculty and upper level administrators commending someone on a great accomplishment would create not only good will but would also extend the communications outreach.
Some administrators acknowledge and advocate whereas others may have their own agendas.
However, when faculty (and students) achieve the entire enterprise gains.
Academics need to feel "connected" to their schools and universities and professional societies and without advocates they may just seek acknowledgment elsewhere.
So, how can you advocate to increase the visibility of female researchers? Some ways are listed below:
The Editor wrote me since he knows that I care about (and try to act accordingly) promoting the visibility of female researchers and this is clearly a substantive way in which visibility and reputation can both be increased.
This got me to thinking about being an Advocate vs. a Mentor, a topic that has been receiving a lot of attention in corporations and, also, in scientific and academic circles, but which needs more.
According to this report, which cites several Harvard Business School publications, the hallmark of an Advocate (sometimes referred to as a Sponsor), is the inherent public nature in that advocates "stick their necks out" and, while a lot of mentoring can be done behind the scenes, advocates put their names next to your performance and make their support highly visible.
Hence, your advocate should promote your visibility, advocate for your next promotion, make connections for you with senior leaders, and connect you with career opportunities. Of course, an advocate, is still a mentor, and can offer career advice.
Dr. Joan M. Herbers, the President of the Association for Women in Science (AWIS) in an interview on Advocating for Women in Science, offers this excellent advice:
One mentor is not enough; in addition to mentors, cultivate sponsors – senior people of influence who will promote your ideas and support your career through nominations to key symposia, society awards, and the like.
I also believe that administrators could and should be Advocates but, sometimes, and this may be due to academic politics, may try to just "work behind the scenes" whereas sending out an announcement to faculty and upper level administrators commending someone on a great accomplishment would create not only good will but would also extend the communications outreach.
Some administrators acknowledge and advocate whereas others may have their own agendas.
However, when faculty (and students) achieve the entire enterprise gains.
Academics need to feel "connected" to their schools and universities and professional societies and without advocates they may just seek acknowledgment elsewhere.
So, how can you advocate to increase the visibility of female researchers? Some ways are listed below:
- Have them be part of a Speakers Program -- I chaired the INFORMS Speakers Program and one of the best things that we did, I think, was not only to increase the geographic representation but also the diversity.
- If you are organizing a conference, have at least one female plenary speaker (just recently, I received a notice for a conference with about 8 male plenary speakers and not a single female -- no chance that I'll be going there nor will I send any of my doctoral students).
- Nominate females for professional recognitions -- from students to senior colleagues.
- Invite female researchers to speak at your campuses.
- Share the news about the successes of the accomplishments of females in newsletters, media, press releases, etc.
- Nominate females for professional society offices.
- Appoint females to editorial boards.
- And, when someone achieves, send a congratulatory note (I try to do this for all my colleagues, male or female)!
Friday, May 10, 2013
A Spectacular 2013 UMass Amherst Graduate Commencement
It is a truly gorgeous May day -- simply perfect for the UMass Amherst graduations!
This morning we took part in the Graduate Commencement ceremonies at the Mullins Center since my doctoral student, Amir H. Masoumi, who successfully defended his PhD dissertation this past February, was receiving his PhD with a concentration in Management Science from the Isenberg School of Management.
The pageantry from the music to the banners and flowers to the faculty and administrators in their caps and gowns along with those receiving their Master's and PhD degrees was perfect.
This year something very special was done and I hope that it becomes part of the UMass Amherst tradition -- the dissertation advisors got to "hood" their PhD students who were receiving their degrees.
I lucked out since we ended up being seated in the first row just behind the musicians so Amir Masoumi was one of the first to go on stage. His wife, Azitha, received her Master's in Engineering, so the day was one in which to celebrate.
Our Chancellor, Dr. Kumble Subbaswamy, gave a warm and inspiring speech and we were surrounded by great feelings of accomplishment and what can be achieved through hard work.
The photos were taken this morning both at the Mullins Center and then outside -- the reception that followed had everything from yummy croissants to fresh fruit and small muffins to delicious coffee!
Congratulations to all the graduate degree recipients and this afternoon we celebrate the thousands who will be receiving their undergraduate degrees from UMass Amherst.
Thanks to all the staff members who made the ceremony flow so smoothly and efficiently.
This morning we took part in the Graduate Commencement ceremonies at the Mullins Center since my doctoral student, Amir H. Masoumi, who successfully defended his PhD dissertation this past February, was receiving his PhD with a concentration in Management Science from the Isenberg School of Management.
The pageantry from the music to the banners and flowers to the faculty and administrators in their caps and gowns along with those receiving their Master's and PhD degrees was perfect.
This year something very special was done and I hope that it becomes part of the UMass Amherst tradition -- the dissertation advisors got to "hood" their PhD students who were receiving their degrees.
I lucked out since we ended up being seated in the first row just behind the musicians so Amir Masoumi was one of the first to go on stage. His wife, Azitha, received her Master's in Engineering, so the day was one in which to celebrate.
Our Chancellor, Dr. Kumble Subbaswamy, gave a warm and inspiring speech and we were surrounded by great feelings of accomplishment and what can be achieved through hard work.
The photos were taken this morning both at the Mullins Center and then outside -- the reception that followed had everything from yummy croissants to fresh fruit and small muffins to delicious coffee!
Thanks to all the staff members who made the ceremony flow so smoothly and efficiently.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
The Milk Run Load Paradox -- Beware of Bad Environmental Policies
Who is not fascinated by paradoxes!
As a researcher and educator in networks, I have done a lot of work on the Braess paradox, and even had the honor of translating, along with him and Tina Wakolbinger, the classic 1968 article by Braess (from German to English). Tina, at that time was my doctoral student (and is now a Full Professor). Below is a photo of the three of us taken in my Supernetworks Lab in 2006 at the Isenberg School at UMass Amherst, after our translation was published in 2005 in Transportation Science. Professor Braess traveled from Germany to visit us. That year I was on sabbatical as a Science Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard.
This intriguing paradox, which shows that how humans interact with infrastructure (transportation in the original version), matters in that the addition of a new road/route may make travelers all worse off in terms of an increase in travel time (under user-optimizing behavior).
I have spoken on this paradox and examples in the real world at the World Science Festival in NYC (great fun), and was interviewed on the topic for the PBS America Revealed video on gridlock by the winner of Survivor (2006), Yul Kwon (tons of fun). I have also written invited OpEds on the topic, including one for Resources for the Future.
Recently, I had the honor of being a panelist on Traffic and Transport at The New York Times Energy for Tomorrow conference with the theme of Building Sustainable Cities (a true intellectual feast with great panelists and discussions that continue to this day in blogs and through emails and phone conversations). Some quotes were captured in this nice post from the IEEE Spectrum EnergyWise blog (thanks)!
Joe Nocera of The New York Times, who needs no introduction, was our panel moderator and I noted transport policies, dating to ancient Roman times, the Braess paradox, and also highlighted the importance of freight to cities' sustainability. I mentioned my experiences of living in Gothenburg, Sweden, as a Visiting Professor, and the discovery there by a doctoral student, Niklas Arvidsson, of the milk run load paradox.
Today, I heard from Niklas, who shared with me that his paper was published in Transportation Research A and he provided me with a reprint. The paper, "The milk run revisited: A load factor paradox with economic and environmental implications for urban freight transport," shows that how you route a truck on a milk run (think of sequential deliveries as a milk truck would do in a bygone era) matters environmentally. Certain governmental policies internationally have focused on increasing throughput of freight but actually having a higher load over a longer distance may add to the environmental emissions so, contrary to certain policies, it may be better to take the route where you can offload your cargo (milk) as soon as possible.
Today I also received a copy of Niklas Arvidsson's dissertation from the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg. His supervisor is Professor Johan Woxenius and I am the co-supervisor. It is such an honor to be visiting this great group of researchers in transport and logistics who also have terrific practical insights.
Research discoveries illuminate and intrigue and make you stop and think -- Wow! congrats to Mr. Arvidsson on such an important and exciting result and on the publication of his paper in Transportation Research A!
I'll be back in Sweden soon for the defense and to celebrate.
And, coincidentally, paradoxes must be "in the air," since my fellow INFORMS member and WORMS President, Professor Laura McLay, just today posted on the Braess paradox -- thanks for the acknowledgment.
As a researcher and educator in networks, I have done a lot of work on the Braess paradox, and even had the honor of translating, along with him and Tina Wakolbinger, the classic 1968 article by Braess (from German to English). Tina, at that time was my doctoral student (and is now a Full Professor). Below is a photo of the three of us taken in my Supernetworks Lab in 2006 at the Isenberg School at UMass Amherst, after our translation was published in 2005 in Transportation Science. Professor Braess traveled from Germany to visit us. That year I was on sabbatical as a Science Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard.
This intriguing paradox, which shows that how humans interact with infrastructure (transportation in the original version), matters in that the addition of a new road/route may make travelers all worse off in terms of an increase in travel time (under user-optimizing behavior).
I have spoken on this paradox and examples in the real world at the World Science Festival in NYC (great fun), and was interviewed on the topic for the PBS America Revealed video on gridlock by the winner of Survivor (2006), Yul Kwon (tons of fun). I have also written invited OpEds on the topic, including one for Resources for the Future.
Recently, I had the honor of being a panelist on Traffic and Transport at The New York Times Energy for Tomorrow conference with the theme of Building Sustainable Cities (a true intellectual feast with great panelists and discussions that continue to this day in blogs and through emails and phone conversations). Some quotes were captured in this nice post from the IEEE Spectrum EnergyWise blog (thanks)!
Joe Nocera of The New York Times, who needs no introduction, was our panel moderator and I noted transport policies, dating to ancient Roman times, the Braess paradox, and also highlighted the importance of freight to cities' sustainability. I mentioned my experiences of living in Gothenburg, Sweden, as a Visiting Professor, and the discovery there by a doctoral student, Niklas Arvidsson, of the milk run load paradox.
Today, I heard from Niklas, who shared with me that his paper was published in Transportation Research A and he provided me with a reprint. The paper, "The milk run revisited: A load factor paradox with economic and environmental implications for urban freight transport," shows that how you route a truck on a milk run (think of sequential deliveries as a milk truck would do in a bygone era) matters environmentally. Certain governmental policies internationally have focused on increasing throughput of freight but actually having a higher load over a longer distance may add to the environmental emissions so, contrary to certain policies, it may be better to take the route where you can offload your cargo (milk) as soon as possible.
Today I also received a copy of Niklas Arvidsson's dissertation from the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg. His supervisor is Professor Johan Woxenius and I am the co-supervisor. It is such an honor to be visiting this great group of researchers in transport and logistics who also have terrific practical insights.
Research discoveries illuminate and intrigue and make you stop and think -- Wow! congrats to Mr. Arvidsson on such an important and exciting result and on the publication of his paper in Transportation Research A!
I'll be back in Sweden soon for the defense and to celebrate.
And, coincidentally, paradoxes must be "in the air," since my fellow INFORMS member and WORMS President, Professor Laura McLay, just today posted on the Braess paradox -- thanks for the acknowledgment.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Super News from the Supernetworks Center at the Isenberg School
This has been a very eventful semester!
As we begin to wrap up a great academic year (and although I am on sabbatical) I thought it appropriate to share news even before our next Supernetwork Sentinel newsletter comes out.
Now, some of the latest highlights from the Virtual Center for Supernetworks at the Isenberg School of Management and its Center Associates.
Professor Jose M. Cruz, who received 5 degrees from UMass Amherst, including his PhD in 2004 from the Isenberg School with a concentration in Management Science, is the recipient of the 2013 UConn School of Business Graduate Teaching Award. In addition, he will be the Director of the UConn M.S. in Business Analytics and Project Management for the next two years and continues as an Ackerman Scholar until 2014.
Professor Cruz in 2010 received the Undergraduate Teaching Award from UConn's School of Business. We hosted him in our UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter Speaker Series last December and his talk on how to get a tenure-track job and then get tenure was brilliant. When he shared the above great news with me he noted how much his education at UMass Amherst has helped him in his success (and as his PhD dissertation advisor, I could not be prouder).
Amir H. Masoumi will be receiving his PhD this coming Friday in Graduate Ceremonies at UMass Amherst, an event I am very much looking forward to, since now the advisor will be hooding the PhD recipient. This event will take place at the grand Mullins Center in the morning. Amir had requests for over a dozen on campus interviews when he was on the job market this past year and will be assuming a tenure-track faculty position at the School of Business at Manhattan College. He, together with Professor Min Yu, who graduated with her PhD last year (I was also her advisor), Professor Ladimer S. Nagurney of the University of Hartford, and me, had our book, Networks Against Time: Supply Chain Analytics for Perishable Products, published in 2013. This was a great supernetwork team effort!
Also, the special issue of Computational Management Science on Financial Networks, which I guest edited, is now in production. It will be a double issue consisting of 8 papers and I am so grateful to the authors (and the anonymous reviewers) for assistance in this big effort. My editorial, which discusses the papers in this special issue, can be accessed and read here.
Professor Dmytro Matsypura of the School of Business at the University of Sydney has been granted a sabbatical and will be visiting the University of Pittsburgh for two months. He, along with several other Center Associates, including Professor Tina Wakolbinger of the Vienna University of Economics and Business, will be presenting research at the Euro-INFORMS Conference in Rome, Italy this summer. Professor Wakolbinger spoke in our series this past February, after the AAAS Dynamics of Disasters Symposium in Boston with other OR/MS and Engineering luminaries such as Professors Laura McLay, Panos M. Pardalos, David McLaughlin, and Jose Holguin-Veras.
And speaking of conferences, I wrote about the wonderful Computational Management Science Conference in Montreal that I recently returned from, which overlapped by a day with the POMS Conference in Denver. My doctoral student, Dong "Michelle" Li did a great job presenting our latest work on medical nuclear supply chains and pharmaceutical supply chains with outsourcing there.
Michelle Li with Center Associate Professor Patrick Qiang of Penn State Malvern at POMS in Denver and with two other doctoral students in Management Science from the Isenberg School in first photo below.
.JPG)
Michelle with Professor Dayo Shittu, UMass Amherst PhD in Industrial Engineering, who is now a Professor at Tulane University at POMS in photo above.
Our work on our big multi-institution, collaborative NSF project: Network Innovation Through Choice continues and our paper, The Cyber-Physical Marketplace: A Framework for Large-Scale Horizontal Integration in Distributed Cyber-Physical Systems,Tilman Wolf, Michael Zink, and Anna Nagurney, will kick-off The Third International Workshop on Cyber-Physical Networking Systems, in Philadelphia, in July.
And, speaking of graduations -- what a happy time of the year this is for the graduates, their proud family members, and professors. I will be back at the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden soon, as part of my sabbatical this year, and will be giving (for the second year in a row) the graduate commencement address there. The next day, I will fly to Athens, Greece to give a plenary on our NSF project at the Network Models in Economics and Finance conference.
No two days for an academic are ever alike and this is one aspect of the academic life that makes it an honor and truly special.
As we begin to wrap up a great academic year (and although I am on sabbatical) I thought it appropriate to share news even before our next Supernetwork Sentinel newsletter comes out.
Now, some of the latest highlights from the Virtual Center for Supernetworks at the Isenberg School of Management and its Center Associates.
Professor Jose M. Cruz, who received 5 degrees from UMass Amherst, including his PhD in 2004 from the Isenberg School with a concentration in Management Science, is the recipient of the 2013 UConn School of Business Graduate Teaching Award. In addition, he will be the Director of the UConn M.S. in Business Analytics and Project Management for the next two years and continues as an Ackerman Scholar until 2014.
Professor Cruz in 2010 received the Undergraduate Teaching Award from UConn's School of Business. We hosted him in our UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter Speaker Series last December and his talk on how to get a tenure-track job and then get tenure was brilliant. When he shared the above great news with me he noted how much his education at UMass Amherst has helped him in his success (and as his PhD dissertation advisor, I could not be prouder).
Amir H. Masoumi will be receiving his PhD this coming Friday in Graduate Ceremonies at UMass Amherst, an event I am very much looking forward to, since now the advisor will be hooding the PhD recipient. This event will take place at the grand Mullins Center in the morning. Amir had requests for over a dozen on campus interviews when he was on the job market this past year and will be assuming a tenure-track faculty position at the School of Business at Manhattan College. He, together with Professor Min Yu, who graduated with her PhD last year (I was also her advisor), Professor Ladimer S. Nagurney of the University of Hartford, and me, had our book, Networks Against Time: Supply Chain Analytics for Perishable Products, published in 2013. This was a great supernetwork team effort!
Also, the special issue of Computational Management Science on Financial Networks, which I guest edited, is now in production. It will be a double issue consisting of 8 papers and I am so grateful to the authors (and the anonymous reviewers) for assistance in this big effort. My editorial, which discusses the papers in this special issue, can be accessed and read here.
Professor Dmytro Matsypura of the School of Business at the University of Sydney has been granted a sabbatical and will be visiting the University of Pittsburgh for two months. He, along with several other Center Associates, including Professor Tina Wakolbinger of the Vienna University of Economics and Business, will be presenting research at the Euro-INFORMS Conference in Rome, Italy this summer. Professor Wakolbinger spoke in our series this past February, after the AAAS Dynamics of Disasters Symposium in Boston with other OR/MS and Engineering luminaries such as Professors Laura McLay, Panos M. Pardalos, David McLaughlin, and Jose Holguin-Veras.
And speaking of conferences, I wrote about the wonderful Computational Management Science Conference in Montreal that I recently returned from, which overlapped by a day with the POMS Conference in Denver. My doctoral student, Dong "Michelle" Li did a great job presenting our latest work on medical nuclear supply chains and pharmaceutical supply chains with outsourcing there.
Michelle Li with Center Associate Professor Patrick Qiang of Penn State Malvern at POMS in Denver and with two other doctoral students in Management Science from the Isenberg School in first photo below.
.JPG)
Our work on our big multi-institution, collaborative NSF project: Network Innovation Through Choice continues and our paper, The Cyber-Physical Marketplace: A Framework for Large-Scale Horizontal Integration in Distributed Cyber-Physical Systems,Tilman Wolf, Michael Zink, and Anna Nagurney, will kick-off The Third International Workshop on Cyber-Physical Networking Systems, in Philadelphia, in July.
And, speaking of graduations -- what a happy time of the year this is for the graduates, their proud family members, and professors. I will be back at the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden soon, as part of my sabbatical this year, and will be giving (for the second year in a row) the graduate commencement address there. The next day, I will fly to Athens, Greece to give a plenary on our NSF project at the Network Models in Economics and Finance conference.
No two days for an academic are ever alike and this is one aspect of the academic life that makes it an honor and truly special.
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