Congrats to Dr. Tina Wakolbinger -- Another Isenberg School PhD Success Story!

Nothing makes a professor happier than when one's students succeed.

Since I teach both undergraduate as well as graduate students, including doctoral students, each year I look forward to their graduations and placements, whether in jobs or in academia.

Also, as Director of the Virtual Center for Supernetworks, I get to know the students that serve as Center Associates especially well and we continue our associations and collaborations.

One of my former doctoral students, Tina Wakolbinger, who received her PhD in 2007 with a concentration in Management Science, and who served as the first President of our revived UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter, and went on to receive the Judith Liebman award from INFORMS, has had a meteoric career. After receiving her PhD, she became an Assistant Professor at the Fogelman College of Business and Economics at the University of Memphis.

Less than 4 years after receiving her PhD, on May 15, 2011, she became a Full Professor, specifically, the Full Professor of Supply Chain Services and Networks at the Vienna University of Economics and Business and last week she received two other major appointments.

Dr. Wakolbinger is now the Head of the Research Institute for Supply Chain Management at the Vienna University of Economics and Business.

Also, she became the Deputy Head of the Institute for Transport and Logistics Management there.

I first met Tina when she was a student in the courses that I taught at the University of Innsbruck in Austria as a Distinguished Chaired Professor under the Fulbright program. After her graduation from that university, she worked for one year in industry in Austria. She then matriculated into our doctoral program at the Isenberg School at UMass Amherst.

Tina and I, along with Professor Dietrich Braess, translated his Braess paradox paper from German to English in an article published in Transportation Science.

She continues to serve as a Center Associate of the Virtual Center for Supernetworks.

Nice to see our supernetwork networking the continents!