We arrived in Glasgow, Scotland, this past weekend, to attend and speak at the
EURO 2015 conference, which has 2,300 operations research delegates from around the world. This is the biggest conference ever held in Glasgow and I was reminded of EURO 2006, which was in Reykljaik, Iceland, with 700 delegates and the biggest scientific conference there to that date. Frankly, the climate is not so different between the two but with more rain in Glasgow.
We were greeted, when we disembarked from the train from Edinburgh, by welcome banners in George Square. The University of Strathclyde is the site and organizer of this fabulous conference. The registration at the Innovation Centre with so many student helpers in red t-shirts was very efficient. The assistants have been very helpful with providing directions and answering questions throughout the conference. The emphasis on customer service has been extraordinary everywhere in Glasgow and Scotland that we have been.
Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh had recently dedicated the Innovation Centre.
One of the first colleagues that I saw was Professor Panos M. Pardalos of the University of Florida, with whom I co-organized the Dynamics of Disasters conference in Kalamata, Greece, just two weeks ago (and we also connected in Edinburgh last week).
The first day of the conference was jam-packed. In the afternoon, my former PhD student at the Isenberg School, Dr, Amir Masoumi of Manhattan College, delivered
our integrated disaster relief paper in a session organized by Professor Tina Wakolbinger of the Vienna University of Economics and Business (who also was my PhD student). Our paper is joint with Professor Min Yu of the University of Portland (another very successful former student of mine).
The paper was recently published in an edited volume that includes
a paper by the Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences Paul Krugman.
Then it was time to run to a session organized by my long-time collaborator and Supernetwork Center Associate, Professor Patrizia Daniele of the University of Catania in Italy. Her session was on equilibrium problems and variational inequalities and I spoke in it on our ecolabelling and fashion supply chain research with Professor Jonas Floden of the University of Gothenburg and also Min Yu.
We even took a group photo of the session participants.
And, amazingly,
the fashion supply chain paper that I presented was just published in a book by Springer, which was on display at the conference! Below I am with Christian Raucher of Springer.
At the exhibit were several books that I had chapters published in.
Another high point (so far) was listening to Professor Terry Rockafellar (since retiring from the University of Washington he has joined the University of Florida) give a plenary talk on his latest work on risk, which is brilliant. He also gave a talk the same day in another session organized by Patrizia Daniele! This is stamina and operations researchers have it.
After such an exciting day filled with great talks and reconnecting with colleagues and friends who had traveled to Glasgow, we convened a group for dinner, which included 3 of my former Isenberg PhD students (Wakolbinger, Masoumi, and Toyasaki), Professor Patrizia Daniele, Professor Monica Cojocaru, Professor Laura Scrimali, Professor Giancarlo Bigi, Professor Mauro Pssacantando, and my husband, Professor Ladimer S. Nagurney, at Amarone (which we had also eaten at in Edinburgh and enjoyed very much).
EURO 2015 also is serving as a great venue for a reunion of 5
Supernetwork Center Associates.
And both Professors Wakolbinger and Toyasaki also took part in
our Dynamics of Disasters conference!
And, after all the great food that we have been consuming, what can be better than walking the Flasgow Green!
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