Looking Forward to Speaking at Yale at its Network Science Institute

The new semester begins at UMass Amherst on Tuesday. It will be a very busy semester but a thrilling one. Besides teaching two courses at the Isenberg School, I will also be hosting speakers not only in my classes but also through the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter as its Faculty Advisor. Plus, I will be traveling to give invited lectures at various universities and companies.

I very much enjoy traveling to different locations and giving talks and always come back with new ideas, an expanded professional network,  wonderful memories, and, sometimes, even adventures. Plus, what could be better than interacting with faculty, students, and practitioners that come to your presentations?

The first invited seminar that I am giving in 2016 will be at Yale University. Although I have given talks at such Ivy League schools (at some of these multiple times) as: Harvard, Brown, Cornell, and UPenn, I have never before spoken at Yale. For this reason, and quite a few others, I am quite excited about speaking there on February 17, 2016.

Since my host at Yale will be the Network Science Institute, it will be extra special to be surrounded by those who share my passion for networks!

I am speaking in the Yale Institute for Network Science (YINS) Distinguished Lecture Series and the title of my presentation is: "Supply Chain Networks Against Time: From Food to Pharma." The abstract and announcement YINS has already graciously posted.  My presentation will be videotaped. The lecture and Q&A will take place from noon until 1:30PM.

I have started working on my presentation, which I will be polishing over the next couple of weeks.

The Directors of the Institute for Network Science are Professor Nicholas A. Christakis and Professor Daniel Speilman. The Executive Director is Dr. Tom Keegan. The Faculty in Residence at the Institute represent many different disciplines from Engineering and Computer Science to Sociology, so I will do my best to have something fascinating for each of them. The Directors have done extraordinary research that has also been widely covered by the media. The YINS Distinguished Lecture Series has hosted such network science colleagues as Albert-László Barabási (whom I had dinner with on October 30,2015), Matthew O. Jackson of Stanford, and Jennifer Chayes of Microsoft Research, among others.

Also, I expect to see the INFORMS President, Professor Ed Kaplan, there, which will be an additional highlight of my visit to Yale.