Three Fabulous Plenary Speakers Confirmed for the Northeast Regional INFORMS Conference!

I can hardly contain my excitement.

We have three outstanding plenary speakers confirmed for the Northeast Regional INFORMS Conference that will take place at UMass Amherst, May 6-7, 2011, and they are:

Dr. Brenda Dietrich of IBM, who will speak on a Smarter Planet.

Dr. Alex "Sandy" Pentland of the Media Lab at MIT, who will give the plenary talk: Building A Nervous System for Humanity: Making Health, Financial, Logistics, and Transportation Networks Work, and

Dr. David Simchi-Levi of MIT, who is also the Editor of the flagship journal, Operations Research, who will be speak on Flexibility--From Practice to Theory.

The panels for this conference are also confirmed and I am delighted that there will be an all student panel.

Please check out the conference website, since it is regularly getting updated.

Both Dr. Brenda Dietrich and Dr. Sandy Pentland spoke earlier in our UMass Amherst INFORMS Speaker Series, so it will be terrific to welcome them back. I will be seeing Dr. Pentland even before then, since he is giving a tutorial at the SBP 2011 conference that will take place at the University of Maryland College Park at the end of this month. I am serving as the Tutorial Chair at this conference.

And, as for a confirmed tutorial at our UMass Amherst conference, I am absolutely delighted that Mr. Greg H. Parlier, a retired colonel, will give the tutorial: Transforming U.S. Army Supply Chains: Management Innovation in DoD for Improved Efficiency, Productivity, and Cost-Effective Global Operations.

This will certainly be a Spring with some wonderful conferences, which I will be blogging about, of course!

Thanks to all the conference organizers and program committee members who devote so much time and effort to the organization of these important venues for researchers, practitioners, and students alike!

Hope to see you at UMass Amherst in the beautiful month of May and even at the SBP 2011 conference before then, if your schedules permit!