From Supply Chain Optimization Summit in Seattle to ACEC in Boston to Big Book Launch in Chicago - What an October!

The new academic year is in full swing and it is a very special time of the year in New England with the fall foliage in its full splendor.

This month of October is jam-packed with so many exciting events that I am taking part in and am very much looking forward to.

Tomorrow (I turned down a trip to France), I will be teleconferencing in for a habilitation defense in France. I am on the candidate's habilitation committee, which required the reading of a professional dissertation, his book, and several papers of his. A habilitation is even higher than a PhD and several countries expect this achievement before one can supervise doctoral students and proceed higher on the academic ladder.

Thursday, the Isenberg School is hosting Marc Schneider, the CEO of the fashion house Kenneth Cole Productions. Marc is an Isenberg School alum and will be speaking to my Logistics and Transportation class. On Friday, my Operations and Management Department will be having its Advisory Board meeting and speed mentoring event. That afternoon I will also be taking part in a networking event organized by the Computational Social Science Institute (CSSI) at UMass Amherst that I am an affiliate of.

This weekend, I will be flying to Seattle, as an invited faculty participant of the First Amazon Supply Chain Optimization Summit. There will be about 30 faculty taking part in this 2-day summit from across the globe and we are even getting a tour of the fulfillment center, complete with Kiva robots.  The list of invited participants contains many well-known INFORMS members so it will be a nice small-scale reunion before our INFORMS conference in Philly at the end of the month.

Upon my return, I will teach my Logistics and Transportation class and then will be heading to Boston for the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) conference.  I am an invited speaker and will give the presentation, "The Application of Supernetworks to Critical Infrastructure from Transportation to Electric Power." This conference overlaps, in part, with the Head of the Charles regatta, for all the rowing fans out there!  Since my college room-mate at Brown University  was on the women's crew team and now my daughter is President of her college crew  and also the cox for two men's boats, I will have to check out the regatta. (And there is a chance that my daughter may be coxing an alum boat from her college).

The following week, I am flying to Chicago, where I have the great pleasure and honor of being one of three panelists at the big book launch of the Boyce and Williams book, which is a scholarly masterpiece: "Forecasting Urban Travel," published by Edward Elgar. This will be a truly celebratory event.

And the week afterwards,  colleagues, students, and I will be off to the INFORMS conference in Philadelphia.

Never a dull moment or day in academia!