As we begin the New 2022 Year, it is time to take stock and to reflect on the year that has passed.
2021 was a remarkable year in many respects, not the least of which was that it marked the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic. As the Center Director, I feel it to be important to share with you reflections on this extraordinary year, and to highlight some of the accomplishments of ours at the Virtual Center for Supernetworks.
In 2021, the book, "Dynamics of Disasters - Impact, Risk, Resilience, and Solutions," that I co-edited with Professors Ilias S. Kotsireas and Panos M. Pardalos, and Dr. Arsenios Tsokas was published by Springer. In it, you will find many fascinating contributions, all peer-reviewed, including co-authored work by Center Associates Professor Patrizia Daniele of the University of Catania in Italy and Professor Tina Wakolbinger on the Vienna University of Economics and Business in Austria. My paper - the very first on incorporating labor into supply chain networks, which was done in the context of perishable food supply chains, also appears therein. And, in July 2021, we, again, co-organized another Dynamics of Disasters conference, which this year, because of the pandemic, although based in Athens, Greece, nevertheless, virtual. The conference included four plenary speakers and we were delighted to hear from all of them, including Center Associate Dr. Stavros Siokos of Astarte Capital, which he co-founded in London. Center Associates were very active at this conference and included presentations of work by Center Associates Professor Patrizia Daniele, Professor Tina Wakolbinger, Professor Deniz Besik of the University of Richmond, Professor Pritha Dutta of Pace University, Professor Ladimer S. Nagurney of the University of Hartford, and Isenberg Doctoral Student Center Associate Mojtaba Salarpour. Mojtaba successfully defended his doctoral dissertation in March 2021.
On June 7, 2021, I was deeply honored with the receipt of the 2020 Harold Larnder Prize from the Canadian Operational Research Society. I delivered my talk, "Novel Supply Chain Network Models Inspired by the COVID-19 Pandemic: From Optimization to Game Theory," virtually and, remarkably, the prize certificate was delivered through express courier services around the same time! The video of my prize lecture can be viewed here. I am only the second female in its 35 year history to receive this prize - the first one was Dr. Ailsa Land, who, sadly, died in 2021. I was honored to be a panelist to recognize her receipt of the Beale Medal, which I blogged about.
In the pandemic, our expertise on supply chains and various network systems continued to be sought after. Since part of the Center's focus is public outreach, in addition to our mission of research and education, we responded to numerous media interview requests from the print media, radio shows, as well as TV news programs, and podcasts. Print media coverage can be viewed here. For various TV and radio interviews plus podcasts, see here,
Center Associates presented at the EURO Conference as well as the INFORMS Conference, which was in hybrid format, with Professor Deniz Besik presenting at this Anaheim conference in person as well as Center Associate Professor Sara Saberi of WPI and Mojtaba Salarpour. I had the honor and pleasure of giving a tutorial at the INFORMS conference, which was recorded - "Game Theory and the COVID-19 Pandemic," which is also an INFORMS publication in its tutorial series. I thank Professors John Carlsson and Doug Shier for their great assistance and support.
In addition, to other conference presentations, we took part in an interesting conclave in India and a workshop in Nepal, demonstrating the reach of the research that we do. Of particular focus this year, was researching various supply chain disruptions in the pandemic, continuing work on food supply chains, modeling various trade measures in the pandemic, expanding on disasters and game theory, and including labor into various supply chain networks in a series of papers, as well as constructing models of human migration and associated policies, and even building a model of convalescent plasma donations! I was deeply honored that my paper, "Supply Chain Game Theory Network Modeling Under Labor Constraints: Applications to the Covid-19 Pandemic," that was published in the European Journal of Operational Research, receive a 2021 Editor's Choice Award.
I am also very grateful to Isenberg Dean Anne P. Massey and to the UMass President Marty Meehan for appointing me the Eugene M. Isenberg Chair in Integrative Studies in April 2021. I am very appreciative of having held the John F. Smith Memorial Professorship of Operations Management from 1998 until that point and especially thank my wonderful benefactor - Jack Smith, the former CEO and Chairman of the Board of General Motors and a UMass Amherst alumnus.
In addition, it was a great year - despite the pandemic - for the
UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter, which I have served as the Faulty Advisor of since 2004. We hosted several panels as well as Dr. Mauricio Resende of Amazon and Dr. Robin Lougee, formerly of IBM in our Speaker Series! The chapter was recognized by INFORMS with the Cum Laude Award at the Annual Meeting in Anaheim. Mojtaba Salarpour, continued to serve as the Chapter President until September 2021, completing two years of exceptional service.
And, to show the research that we are engaged in, below I highlight some of our recent publications:
Supply Chain Networks, Wages, and Labor Productivity: Insights from Lagrange Analysis and Computations
Anna Nagurney, to appear in Journal of Global Optimization.
A Multiperiod Supply Chain Network Optimization Model with Investments in Labor Productivity Enhancements in an Era of COVID-19 and Climate Change
Anna Nagurney, accepted for publication in Operations Research Forum.
Optimization of Investments in Labor Productivity in Supply Chain Networks
Anna Nagurney, accepted for publication in International Transactions in Operational Research.
Wage-Dependent Labor and Supply Chain Networks in the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond
Anna Nagurney, in press in Analysis, Geometry, Nonlinear Optimization and Applications, P.M. Pardalos and T. M. Rassias, Editors World Scientific Publishing, Singapore, October 2021.
Game Theory and the COVID-19 Pandemic
Anna Nagurney, in INFORMS TutORials in Operations Research, October 2021. Also presented at the INFORMS 2021 Annual Meeting.
Modeling of Covid-19 Trade Measures on Essential Products: A Multiproduct, Multicountry Spatial Price Equilibrium Framework
Anna Nagurney, Mojtaba Salarpour, and June Dong, International Transactions in Operational Research 29(1), 2022, pp 226-258.
A Multiclass, Multiproduct Covid-19 Convalescent Plasma Donor Equilibrium Model
Anna Nagurney and Pritha Dutta, Operations Research Forum 2, 31 (2021) Open Access on SpringerLink
Spatial Price Equilibrium, Perishable Products, and Trade Policies in the Covid-19 Pandemic
Anna Nagurney, Montes Taurus Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics 4(3), 2022, 9-24.
A Multicountry, Multicommodity Stochastic Game Theory Network Model of Competition for Medical Supplies Inspired by the Covid-19 Pandemic
Mojtaba Salarpour and Anna Nagurney, International Journal of Production Economics 235: (2021), 108074.
Optimization of Supply Chain Networks with Inclusion of Labor: Applications to COVID-19 Pandemic Disruptions
Anna Nagurney, International Journal of Production Economics 235: (2021) 108080.
Perishable Food Supply Chain Networks with Labor in the Covid-19 Pandemic
Anna Nagurney, Dynamics of Disasters - Impact, Risk, Resilience, and Solutions, I.S. Kotsireas, A. Nagurney, P.M. Pardalos, and A. Tsokas, Editors, Springer Nature Switzerland AG, 2021, pp 173-193.
Capacitated Human Migration Networks and Subsidization
Anna Nagurney, Patrizia Daniele, and Giorgia Cappello, Dynamics of Disasters - Impact, Risk, Resilience, and Solutions, I.S. Kotsireas, A. Nagurney, P.M. Pardalos, and A. Tsokas, Editors, Springer Nature Switzerland AG, 2021, pp 195-217.
Preface to Dynamics of Disasters Impact, Risk, Resilience, and Solutions, Ilias S. Kotsireas, Anna Nagurney, Panos M. Pardalos and Arsenios Tsokas, Editors, Springer Nature Switzerland AG, 2021, pp v-xii.
International Human Migration Networks Under Regulations
Anna Nagurney and Patrizia Daniele, European Journal of Operational Research 291(3): (2021), pp 894-905.
Networks in Economics and Finance in Networks and Beyond: A Half Century Retrospective
Anna Nagurney, written for the Special 50th Anniversary Issue of Networks, Networks 77(1): (2021), pp 50-65.
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