Good News Happens in "Threes"

My mother, from Eastern Europe, always used to say that "good news happens in 'threes'." Yesterday, was another datapoint for this insight. Sometimes, given the patience that we in academia have to have, I wish that the good news would spread out a bit and not bunch up so. In any event, we have A LOT to celebrate and I am so grateful for the following.

Good (Great) Morning!

We have now heard officially the following news:

1. Our UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter has been selected for the TOP chapter award -- summa cum laude (and this is from an elite group of chapters that include those at: Stanford, Berkeley, Cornell, Princeton, MIT, Michigan and 25 other chapters). The award will be given on October 13 at the San Diego Annual INFORMS Meeting. Needless to say, this is a great honor. Many thanks to the officers, members, faculty, and staff for their hard work in support of our chapter! We could not accomplish as much as we do without all of your support provided to our Speaker Series and numerous other professional, social, and educational activities!

2. In addition, Dr. Patrick Qiang, Management Science, who received his PhD from UMass Amherst in May 2009, has been selected as the recipient of the 2009 Judith Liebman Award of
INFORMS. He will also be receiving this award at the INFORMS Annual Meeting in San Diego in October.

Patrick was a recipient of a UMass Graduate Fellowship for 2008-2009.

More info on the Judith Liebman Award and other INFORMS awards can be found on the ff. link: http://www.informs.org/index.php?c=36&kat=-+INFORMS+Prizes+and+Awards

Coincidentally, Judith Liebman was a doctoral student at Johns Hopkins University while my dissertation advisor, Stella Dafermos, was also a student there. Both were pioneering females in operations research.

Dr. Qiang is now an Assistant Professor of Operations Management at Pennsylvania State University Graduate School of Professional Studies; see:
http://www.sgps.psu.edu/FacultyProfile.aspx?id=3296

I nominated Patrick for this award, and I know how meaningful this award is.

This is the third time that the chapter has received a national award within the past three years. Also, Dr. Tina Wakolbinger, Management Science, PhD 2007, received the Judith Liebman Award in 2006. Both Dr. Qiang and Dr. Wakolbinger are Associates of the Virtual Center for Supernetworks.

3. Plus, yesterday, we were informed that the paper, An Integrated Framework for the Design of Optimal Web Banners, which was co-authored by three females, Professors Lili Hai and Lan Zhao of SUNY Old Westbury and me, has now been accepted in the journal Netnomics. Given the importance and relevance of web-based advertising, we are very excited about the acceptance of this paper, which is now in press in the above journal.