My INFORMS Tutorial on Game Theory and the COVID-19 Pandemic

This past week the INFORMS Annual Meeting took place in Anaheim, California with both in-person and virtual presentations. I was honored to have been invited by Professor John Carlsson from USC to present a tutorial at this conference. My tutorial was on: Game Theory and the COVID-19 Pandemic. The tutorials were all prerecorded and streamed.

The tutorial has coverage of fundamental methodologies plus applications of game theory and optimization to supply chain network models inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic from food to PPE ones. It includes models in which the governing concept is that of Nash Equilibrium, Generalized Nash Equilibrium as well as cooperation. The application part of the tutorial is based on papers, synthesized, that have been published in the pandemic. I am very grateful to my co-authors for wonderful collaborations before the pandemic and throughout the pandemic.

The video of the tutorial can be viewed here: https://bit.ly/3pCzFeT.

Due to requests, I have also made the slide deck of my tutorial available and it can be downloaded here: https://bit.ly/3mfR8HK

Finally, the preprint of of the tutorial is available on the following link https://bit.ly/3bdEvXD. The tutorial paper, which is 48 pages, has been published in the INFORMS Tutorial volume:  Emerging Optimization Methods and Modeling Techniques with Applications https://bit.ly/3Gg4GeB. 

Special acknowledgments to Professors John Carlsson and Doug Shier of Clemson University for the expert editing of the volume and the organizing of these timely tutorials. 

It's Official - Announcement of Stella Dafermos Achievement Award in Transportation Science, Thanks to TSL Society of INFORMS!

This morning the business meeting of the Transportation Science and Logistics (TSL) Society of INFORMS took place in a virtual format. There were over 100 participants, with even Norway, Germany, and Israel represented!

I'd like to thank the President of TSL, Professor Mike Hewitt, for running a very professional, and swiftly moving, meeting at which there were many wonderful award announcements and professional updates.

It is now official - I have known about this for months but had to be quiet until the announcement today. 

I am delighted that the TSL Society is recognizing my PhD dissertation advisor, Professor Stella Dafermos, who, sadly, passed away in April 1990 at age 49, with an award in her honor - Stella Dafermos Achievement Award in Transportation Science. I was her first PhD student

I will be chairing the first award committee and am deeply moved and honored.

I'd like to sincerely thank the President and the Board of the TSL Society for recognizing this amazing female trailblazer and role model in this significant way.

I was asked to prepare a short speech highlighting her contributions. 

The slide deck of my presentation can be downloaded here.

The video recording of my presentation can be viewed here.

Stella made herstory/history, in many respects.  She was the second female recipient of a PhD in Operations Research in the US and was the first female Full Professor in Engineering and in Applied Mathematics at Brown University, which she achieved in 1982.

Her 1980 paper, "Traffic Equilibrium and Variational Inequalities," published in the INFORMS journal, Transportation Science, was among the list of 12 most impactful papers in the journal over its 50 year history, as of 2016. All these classic papers can be downloaded for free on the above link provided.

Stella Dafermos had the highest standards when it came to scientific research.  She was guest editing a special issue on Network Equilibrium of Transportation Science, when she passed away, so Professor Amedeo Odoni of MIT and I completed the editorial process and we also published an In Memoriam to Stella in the special issue.

As I said in my speech this morning, "One wonders how much the world has missed because of her untimely passing."

I leave you with a photo of  Stella with Professor George Nemhauser that I took in Tokyo at the Mathematical Programming Symposium, August 28 - September 2, 1988. Stella loved conferencing and I enjoyed travel with her very much as well as publishing with her in many journals, including Operations Research and Mathematical Programming as well as Transportation Science, among others.

When I informed Stella’s husband, Dr. Constantine Dafermos, the Alumni-Alumnae University Professor Applied Mathematics at Brown University,about the Stella Dafermos Achievement Award, he responded, “I am delighted, moved and also – on behalf of Stella – honored.” “I feel that establishing the prize is a major service to your field, as it will serve as a recognition of the contributions in the early days and as a reminder that women were among these contributors.”

Let's continue to do our very best to uphold the highest standards that she set.