The Spring Supernetwork Newsletter Is Published!

I am delighted to share that the 2025 Spring Edition of The Supernetwork Sentinel, the newsletter of the Virtual Center for Supernetworks that I founded in 2001 and continue to serve as the Director of, has now been published.

It was an extraordinary spring semester with many activities and news items to report.

It is wonderful to see that our research is making impact and that we continue to be sought by the media for our expertise on supply chains and various policies, including tariffs. This summer will be busy with conferences and also with work on international trade as well as food security.

The Spring 2025 newsletter, as well as all other earlier newsletters, can be accessed here: https://supernet.isenberg.umass.edu/newsletters/sentinel.html

Thank you for the support!

Excited About the 2nd Virtual Conference on Ukraine with Amazing Keynote Speakers!

The 2nd Virtual Conference on Ukraine (with free registration) will take place August 22-23, 2025.

Many thanks to the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden for providing support.

Last year I was involved with the first such conference and, this year, I am honored to be on the conference Scientific Committee as well as to be one of the keynote speakers. This conference will also have 3 Nobel Laureates in Economics delivering keynotes: 

• Nobel Laureate Daron Acemoglu, MIT, USA
• Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, City University of New York, USA
•  Roger Myerson, University of Chicago, USA

along with keynoters:

• Yuriy Gorodnichenko, UC Berkeley, USA
• Subal Kumbhakar, Binghamton University, USA.

I have the pleasure of working with Roger Myerson on the International Academic Board of the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) and the same for Yuriy Gorodnichenko.

We are also organizing a panel on “Challenges of Ukraine’s Post-War Reconstruction.”

The deadline for full papers or extended abstracts is approaching, so, please, also visit the website at KTH: https://www.kth.se/ukraine-conference

And for some highlights of last year's conference, please see my blogpost: https://annanagurney.blogspot.com/2024/08/kudos-to-organizers-of-first.html

Making an Impact - All Set with 3 Talks for the EURO Conference in Leeds, UK!

In a few days, I head to the UK. I am very excited about the EURO conference at the University of Leeds https://euro2025leeds.uk/, at which I will have 3 invited presentations. My talks are all prepared. This conference marks 50 years of the professional society of EURO, so it will be a very celebratory conference.

The Making an Impact stream, which is the practitioners' stream at the EURO conferences, is always a favorite of mine. I'm thrilled that, at this conference, I'll present on: Tariffs, Trade, and OR: Impacts on Producers, Consumers, and Labor in the Making an Impact: 'OR in Action Lightning Talks' session. Thanks to Ruth Kaufman for organizing this session, which will be the first one of the conference. I last saw Ruth at my Blackett Lecture, which I delivered at The Royal Society in London on December 5, 2024. 

And, in the session immediately following, I'll deliver the presentation, "Integrated Crop and Cargo War Risk Insurance: Application to Ukraine," which is based on a paper I co-authored with my Isenberg School of Management, UMass Amherst PhD student Ismael M. Pour and Professor Borys Kormych of Odesa. The paper was recently published in the International Journal of Operational Research: https://lnkd.in/ewmXR8kU. 

Many thanks also to Professors Gerhard-Wilhelm Weber and Roberto Rossi for inviting me to speak in the session: Celebrating 50 Years of EURO on "Reflections on Wonderful OR Experiences at EURO Conferences Over 20 Years." In that presentation slide deck I have many photos of conferees at EURO conferences in Reykjavik, Poznan, Dublin, and other locations.  I am very much looking forward to the outstanding scientific presentations and social gatherings and to building new memories.

Thrilled to be Ranked #6 in Supply Chains Globally by ScholarGPS

 A while back, I received the following letter from ScholarGPS:

I had been seeing posts on social media, including on LinkedIn, celebrating notifications by ScholarGPS, which uses a combination of metrics to achieve their rankings. I had also heard that one of my former PhD students, now an Associate Professor - Jose M. Cruz of UConn's Business School, was ranked #94. Given that there are many notable contributors to supply chains, I was thrilled to see my ranking as being #6 since I have been working very hard (but loving the work) on supply chains for over two decades. 

I know quite a few of the scholars in the top 20 in supply chains - the list can be viewed here

https://scholargps.com/highly-ranked-scholars?ranking_duration=LIFETIME&specialty=Supply+chain&p=1#6

and am honored and delighted to be included.  Quite amazing to also be #26 in MIS and #76 in Business and Management since there are so many scholars in different areas in Business: https://scholargps.com/scholars/90395641764625/anna-nagurney

Back to finishing up presentations for the upcoming EURO conference at the University of Leeds in the UK.

Our Latest Paper on Multicommodity Trade of Fresh Produce with a Case Study on Bananas Is Now Published!

I am thrilled that the paper, "Multicommodity Fresh Produce Trade Networks with Quality Deterioration Under Congestion and Transportation Capacities," that I co-authored with Deniz Besik of the University of Richmond is now published in the Journal of Global Optimization! Plus, the paper is published open access and can be read and downloaded on the link: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10898-025-01507-3.

Deniz presented this paper last year at the EURO Conference in Copenhagen:

The paper contains a very interesting case study on bananas, the most widely traded fruit globally, and demonstrates the impacts on fresh produce quality of transportation disruptions and delays. The work was inspired by recent challenges to transportation on the Panama Canal because of insufficient water, leading to congestion. The paper shows that because of negative transportation impacts, consumers may pay higher prices for bananas of lower quality. 

Deniz will present this paper at the 2025 Commodity and Energy Markets Association Annual Meeting (CEMA) in Houston in a few days, as I head to the EURO Conference in Leeds, United Kingdom, where I have three invited talks!

This was another outstanding collaboration of ours on a highly relevant topic.