It is hard to believe that the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter was founded in 2004! I have been lucky to have served as its Faculty Advisor from its very inception and have seen so many of our wonderful student members graduate and excel professionally, whether as academics or practitioners. We have built an extraordinary community of students (and also faculty) that are advocates for, users of, and appliers of Operations Research (OR) and the Management Sciences (MS) and Analytics, working on making the world a better place.
The members come from the Isenberg School of Management, the College of Engineering, and the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences at UMass Amherst but all students, who are interested in OR/MS and Analytics, are welcome. Typically, the student members are PhD students but we have also had undergraduate students as members. Our invited seminars are advertised at UMass Amherst and are also open to the public.
On August 15, 2025, even though it was the summer still, we celebrated outstanding 2024-2025 officers and members with a special event. I presented award certificates in the beautiful Business Innovation Hub at the Isenberg School of Management to Officers: Ismael M. Pour, Samira Samadi, Semih Boz, Josh Gladstone, G. Busra Karkili, Yukti Kathuria, Sindhoora Prakash, Parisa Lotfibagha, and Mohammad Derakhshi and to Members: Yongdong Chen and Dana Hassani and thanked them for their service! Thanks also to faculty: Professors Arzum Akkas and Chaitra Gopalappa, who were able to join us. The pizza and salads provided by University of Massachusetts Amherst Dining were delicious as was the chocolate cake from Whole Foods. PhD students are so important to the intellectual life of a university.
It is an honor to serve as this INFORMS Chapter's Faculty Advisor. Looking forward to another exciting academic year with chapter activities. Many thanks to all who support us! Additional photos and information on the Chapter activities can be found on its website: https://websites.umass.edu/umassinf/
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