Sunday, May 8, 2011

Highlights and Photos -- The First Northeast Regional INFORMS Conference at UMass Amherst

It takes a lot of planning and hard work to put on a conference and any successful conference is a major collaborative effort that takes months of preparation and careful attention to detail and logistics.

The First Northeast Regional INFORMS Conference, which took place May 6-7, 2011, at UMass Amherst is now over and from all the comments that we have received, it was clearly a success.

Below I feature, through photos, some of the highlights of our conference.

Mornings at UMass Amherst Before the Sessions Began



Mary Magrogan and Tracy Byrnes of INFORMS with Some Members of the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter in the Registration Area

The Introductions by Dr. Hari Balasubramania, Chair of the Conference, and Dean Mark Fuller of the Isenberg School



The Plenary Talks by Dr. David Simchi-Levi of MIT, Dr. Alex "Sandy" Pentland of the Media Lab at MIT, and Dr. Brenda Dietrich of IBM




The Interesting Panels, Some of the Speakers, and Coffee Breaks






Poster Session, Reception, and Informal Get-Togethers






Special thanks to the institutions that provided financial support, including the Isenberg School and the College of Engineering at UMass Amherst, and to Dr. Hari Balasubramanian of the College of Engineering at UMass Amherst and to Dr. Les Servi of MITRE, for their extraordinary efforts in making this conference a success. It was such a pleasure to work with them.

Also, thanks to all those who traveled to our campus and gave such wonderful presentations and engaged everyone in stimulating conversations and discussions.

Thanks and applause to Mary Magrogan and Tracy Byrnes of INFORMS for spending several days at UMass Amherst and for doing so much before and doing the conference.

I would also like to thank the officers and members of the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter who helped out with the projectors, the session notices, by giving directions, etc. Plus, many of the members presented their research and some even were panelists!