Honored to Have Reached Over 25,000 Citations on Google Scholar

I was my PhD Dissertation Advisor's  (Stella Dafermos's) first PhD student at Brown University. She was a trailblazer and left an incredible scholarly legacy although she passed away at the age of 49.

Somehow, with effort, luck, passion, and serendipity, I have managed to build a wonderful collaboration network with students (past and present) as well as researchers around the globe. For all my collaborators, I am deeply grateful.

And, as a female scholar, I think it is meaningful to have reached the milestone of over 25,000 citations to my work on Google Scholar. The full list of my publications, as well as my collaborators over the years,  can be found on my Google Scholar page: 

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ecFsBp0AAAAJ&hl=e

It is interesting that my two most highly cited publications are the first two books that I wrote, one with a former PhD student of mine, now Professor at SUNY Oswego, Dr. Ding Zhang. And, my most highly cited journal paper, published in Transportation Science, is a translation from German to English of the famous Braess (1968) paradox paper. That paper was co-authored with Professor Dietrich Braess and my former PhD student, now Professor Tina Wakolbinger of the Vienna University of Economics and Business. And, in 2002,  along with Professor Ding Zhang, and his wife (also a former PhD student of mine),  SUNY Oswego Professor June Dong, we published the paper, "A supply chain network equilibrium model," in Transportation Research E, which is my 4th most highly cited work.

Many thanks to all the researchers and scholars who cite our work!

Doing research (and having it make some impact) is the greatest reward but it is nice also to have the work acknowledged, read, and cited.

Congratulations to My PhD Student, Dana Hassani, on His Outstanding Doctoral Teaching Award

Last Friday, we had our end of the academic year All School Meeting at the Isenberg School of Management at which milestones were celebrated, announcements made, and both faculty and doctoral students were recognized for their professional contributions.

It was wonderful to see Dana Hassani, one of my PhD students in Operations Management at the Isenberg School, receive the 2026 Outstanding Doctoral Teacher Award. Dana has been in our doctoral program since late January 2022.  I enjoyed writing the nomination letter for Dana for this award and thank the Selection Committee for their hard work.

The award was presented to Dana by Associate Dean and Isenberg PhD Program Director Fousseni Chabi-Yo. Dana, for several semesters now, has taught the required course, OIM 240 - Business Data Analysis, for our undergraduates.  OIM 240 is a math heavy and technical course, which can become boring or  confusing for students. Dana reviews core course concepts multiple times to  ensure that every student has a strong grasp of the material. He also integrates lectures with real-world examples tailored to students’ interests, highlighting the applications of the content and making concepts more engaging.

Dana has shared with me how he regularly uses datasets from the  sports industry (e.g., NBA and WNBA franchises and soccer clubs) or social  media platforms. Students very much appreciate Dana’s extra effort, with many  reaching out after class to discuss the applications in more depth.

Excellent teachers can also be great researchers. Dana was recognized by the Isenberg School with the Outstanding Doctoral Student Research Award both in 2025 and in 2024. Dana has had 3 journal articles published and 1 book chapter and recently submitted another paper to a journal.

And, after the All School Meeting, was our Barbecue for Graduating Seniors, right outside of the Isenberg School.

I thank Professor Muzzo Uysal for taking the photo below before we headed out to eat and chat and meet with our soon to be graduates.

It is important to celbrate wonderful students and their achievements as they work towards their goals. Dana hopes to become a professor soon.

My post on Dana's 2025 Research Award can be read here: https://annanagurney.blogspot.com/2025/05/congratulations-to-dana-hassani-on.html

Delighted that Our Paper on Fresh Produce Trade and "Choke Points" is Published in EJOR!

The three of us worked very hard on this paper, "Fresh Produce Spatial Price Equilibrium on General Networks: Capturing Commodity Quality Deterioration Through Endogenous Transportation Time Delay Functions with Capacities," and it took three revisions (a record for me, I must say) before acceptance. My co-authors on this paper are Samirasadat "Samira" Samadi, who is one of my PhD students, and Professor Deniz Besik of the Robins School of Business at the University of Richmond.

The paper was published in a volume of the European Journal of Operational Research (EJOR) this past week, which was extra exciting since it also was the last week of classes of the academic year at UMass Amherst!

The link to the journal publication of the article is here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0377221726003759.

The work was inspired by many challenges associated with fresh produce transportation and quality of the commodities because of issues such as drought as in the Panama Canal and now the essential shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz because of the war on Iran. We capture endogeneous transportation delays due to capacity reduction on links and the impact on quality of fresh produce as it travels from supply markets to demand markets. The case study in the paper is on the global trade of bananas, a nutritious and very popular fruit, which is also important for food security. We also propose commodity quality trade network performance measures, supply-based, demand-based, and network-based, that can be applied for an individual commodity or across all commodities.

We are grateful to the EJOR Editor, Professor Mike Yearworth, who handled out paper, and to the reviewers for their comments and suggestions. My co-authors and I very much believe in the relevance and importance of the research that resulted in this paper.

Magnificent OIM Awards Celebration 2026

On April 20, 2026, my Operations and Information Management (OIM) Department at the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst helds its Awards Celebration event.

A big CONGRATULATIONS to ALL the amazing students that were recognized and to the recipient of the OIM Distinguished Alumni Award Paul Cichocki! The awards celebration, which included a delicious banquet meal at The Inn at Boltwood in Amherst, was lovely - with expert organization, thanks to the Department Chair Professor Senay Solak, the Associate Department Chair Professor Michele Burch, and our great Office Manager Samantha Whittle. 

Congratulations to: the RSM U.S. Foundation Consulting Scholarship Recipients: Iris Cabral and Kamila Velez; The NCG Operations and Information Scholarship Recipient: Wendy Zou, and to The Nagurney Scholarship Recipient: Campbell Hatcher. Bravo to the Isenberg Senior Leadership Award Recipient: Gowri Vellanki and to Spencer Zbitnoff on his Isenberg Academic Excellence Award. The OIM Exceptional Impact Scholarship Recipients are: Reese Barnett, Suzanne Patti, Alfonso Alvarez Ribeiro, and Josie Wu! Congratulations to all the OIM Elevate Scholarship Awardees: Darrius Lupo, Ryan Bonia, and Carolin Zorrilla We also recognized two PhD students with the OIM Elevate Scholarship: Yue Xue, who is pursuing her doctorate in Information Systems, and Solmaz Abbaspour, who is pursuing hers in Operations Management. 

Many thanks to the OIM Faculty Scholarship Committee Members: Professors Susan Boyer, Ying Liu, and Shirley Shmerling. Many of the faculty, students, and their supporters lingered after the ceremony as we basked in the warmth of this truly special academic community. Best to all our students as they pursue their dreams!

This was the third time that my department held such an Awards Celebration and it is one of our favorite events of the academic year. It was also very special to have Campbell Hatcher receive The Nagurney Scholarship, which my husband and I established. Campbell wrote us a lovely letter a while back. She is majoring not only in OIM but also in Sport Management and, after her graduation next week, will be joining Kerry in Wisconsin. Her work ethic and engagement in so many activities, including mentoring ones, while working about 25 hours a week are inspiring.

Outstanding Guest Lecture by Mr. Seth Thayumanavan on Biotech in My Humanitarian Logistics Class

Last Thursday, I was delighted to welcome Mr. Seth Thayumanavan to my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare class at the Isenberg School of Management. His guest lecture was on the biotech industry, with a focus on background for the oncology startup that he co-founded with his father, Distinguished University Professor Thai Thayumanavan.  The name of the company is Nalam Technologies. 

The guest lecture was of great interest to my students in the class, who come from the Isenberg School, the Riccio College of Engineering at UMass Amherst, and also its School of Public Health.

His  presentation demonstrated the great passion that he has for the very important work of Nalam Therapeutics and its team. The students were captivated by the presentation that discussed the story of pharmaceutical cancer therapy and, in particular, targeted delivery systems to make cancer treatment safer and more effective plus the importance of the 4Ps: patients, payers, providers, and policy makers and the challenges associated with clinical trials and venture capital. The students appreciated Mr. Thayumanavan sharing his experiences from the valuable coursework at UPenn to the various positions that he has held. He highlighted that a career path need not be “linear” as well as the great value of networking, which I very much appreciated and agree with!

His presentation generated so many questions – always a sign of immense interest from the audience. I continue to receive comments from students who were both educated and very impressed by the guest lecture and work. We presented Mr. Thayumanavan with a framed Professor for a Day certificate, which had been signed by the Isenberg Dean Anne P. Massey!

Having expert practitioners speak to students provides for a very enriching educational experience.

I wish Nalam Technologies much success in their important work for humanity.

Thanks to Dr. Les Servi for Speaking in Our UMass Amherst INFORMS Speaker Series

On April 10, 2026, we had the honor and pleasure of having Dr. Les Servi speak in our UMass Amherst INFORMS Speaker Series. We were very excited to have Dr. Servi back at UMass Amherst. 

The title of his presentation was: “Identifying Critical Nodes in Mission Systems: An Operations Research Framework.” 

Dr. Les Servi is an Operations Research Scientist and former Chief Scientist for Cyber Operations Research at The MITRE Corporation. Earlier, he conducted research at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Bell Laboratories, and GTE Laboratories (now Verizon), and spent a sabbatical year as a visiting scientist at Harvard University and MIT.  He has served as an Associate Editor for the journals: Operations Research, Management Science, and the INFORMS Journal on Computing. He is also  a MORS Fellow, an INFORMS Fellow, and served six years on the INFORMS Board of Directors. Dr. Servi is an INFORMS VP Chapters and Forums Board member.

Dr. Servi's book, "Mission Dependency Network Analysis," was published by Springer in 2026 and he kindly presented me with a copy. It was nice to see one of my papers with Patrick Qiang cited therein.

We had a great discussion after his presentation and at lunch. Many thanks to the INFORMS Student Chapter for doing such a nice job in publicizing his presentation - the announcement even made the UMass Amherst homepage with special thanks to the Chapter President Samira Samadi.

And, after the delicious lunch at the UMass Commonwealth Restaurant, Dr. Servi was off to Logan Airport to catch a flight to DC for the INFORMS Analytics Conference, where I joined him on Sunday!

I Thoroughly Enjoyed Speaking on Trade Wars and Game Theory at the Great INFORMS Analytics Conference

Conferences can be deeply engaging and energizing and the recent INFORMS Analytics Conference at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center set new standards https://meetings.informs.org/wordpress/analytics/! Many thanks to all those who helped to make this conference a great success!

I love the serendipity of great conferences from the meeting of new colleagues to seeing friends that you did not even realize would be attending! 

There were over 500 attendees and about 60 one hour presentations. I was honored and delighted to be able speak on Trade Wars and Game Theory. Who Wins, Who Loses? The audience was terrific with many excellent, thoughtful questions. And, as promised, I have now posted the slide deck from my presentation: https://supernet.isenberg.umass.edu/visuals/Analytics-Nagurney-2026.pdf

I very much enjoyed many of the Edelman Award presentations of the finalists and the networking events. The food was also delicious and the venue was stunning! Engagement of academics with practitioners is critically important and, after I returned, I shared some of the many highlights with the students in my class at the Isenberg School of Management.

The Experience of Giving a Distinguished Engineering Lecture at Purdue University Was Extraordinary - Thank You!

Last evening I returned from a whirlwind trip to Purdue University, where I was deeply honored to deliver a Distinguished Engineering Lecture entitled: "Agricultural Supply Chain Networks: Trade, Policies, Food Security, and Resilience."

My lecture took place on March 26, 2026, and my travel from Amherst,  MA to West Lafayette, Indiana as well as back was wonderful via shuttles and two legged flights each way via American Airlines. Many thanks to the selfless, unpaid still, TSA workers at Bradley International Airport and at the Indianapolis Airport.

I'd like to thank the Purdue University College of Engineering and the Purdue University Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering for the outstanding hospitality extended to me. It was a great honor and pleasure to be introduced by Associate Dean Nikhilesh Chawla. The Distinguished Engineering Lecture took place in the stunning atrium of the Armstrong Building, named after its alumnus, the astronaut Neil Armstrong. The format was very intellectually engaging with a panel afterwards on: "Bridging Engineering and Agriculture: Innovations for Resilient Supply Chains," with fellow panelists: Purdue University Professors Maksym Chepeliev, Sivaranjani Seetharaman, and Yu She, expertly moderated by Professor Hua Cai. It was very special to be presented by James J. Solberg Head of the Edwardson School Professor Young-Jun Son with a beautiful engraved glass award afterwards. 

A big highlight, after the lively panel discussions, was to meet Associate Vice Provost and Dean of the John Martinson Honors College Professor Felisa (Preciado) Higgins and two undergraduate students from Panama! In my Distinguished Lecture, I spoke about various disruptions to agricultural supply chains (and there are many), as well as trade policies, and resilience, and noted, of course, impacts of the recent drought affecting the Panama Canal as well as wars on Ukraine and in the Middle East. Also, two undergraduate students from Jordan came up to me and presented me with a type-written project plan on Agricultural Supply Networks for their country! Fellow panelist Maksym Chepeliev was born in Ukraine and his sister is now studying at the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE). It is such a small world - I continue to serve on the Board of Directors of KSE and on its International Academic Board.

Everything surrounding my visit was organized beautifully with great attention to detail. I am very grateful to the exceptional staff members: Leza Dellinger and Cole Stonebraker for making my visit so comfortable and well-planned.

I thoroughly enjoyed the delicious welcome dinner with Professors Susan Hunter, David Johnson (who recently returned from Singapore), and Yuehwern Yih and terrific conversations; breakfast with fellow panelists and moderator; a catered lunch, plus closing dinner at a fabulous Japanese restaurant with exceptional host James J. Solberg Head Professor Young-Jun Son and faculty: Professors Reem Khir, Miaolan Xie, Sivaranjani Seetharaman, and Liwei Jiang. We had extra excitement at that dinner because of a tornado siren warning and lots of lightning. The positive excitement continued when Purdue beat Texas in the Sweet Sixteen basketball tournament.

Other highlights included a tour of the Gateway Lab, thanks to David Kish, PE, and two excellent undergraduate students, one of whom was named Kai and was from LA, and the other one, whose name I did not catch, was from Tennessee. 

I'm very grateful to Engineering Dean Arvind Raman for taking the time to meet with me and to show me, from his stunning outdoor office suite balcony, a "replica" trail of Armstrong's lunar footprints marking: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Thanks also to Professors Srinivasan Chandrasekar and Nan Kong for the friendly, engaging conversations. Amazingly, Dr. Kong remembered me when I gave a talk at the University of Pittsburgh through the INFORMS Speakers Program, when he was a graduate student there!

The meeting with Dr. Chandresakar took place in a boardroom with paintings of  Professor Yuehwern Yih, who was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, and Frank and Lillian Gilbreth. Dr. Yih is a name not only in engineering but also in ballroom dancing! She is now a Chair of  the USA Dance National DanceSport Championships, taking place in Pittsburgh.  

Many thanks for the extraordinary experience!

Thanks to the Outstanding Guest Lecturers in My Humanitarian Logistics Class at the Isenberg School of Management

This spring, I am, again, teaching my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare class at the Isenberg School of Management. The class meets, bright and early, on Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 8:30AM.

I have amazing students this term - one of whom commutes by bus from Boston and many times he beats me to the classroom before 8AM. He is completing two Master's degrees this spring from UMass Amherst, as is another student in the class. The enrolled students come from the Isenberg School of Management, the Riccio College of Engineering, and the School of Public Health. The course is interdisciplinary since it requires a team approach to handle challenges associated with all phases of disaster management.

I work hard on making the course material very current and relevant. An aspect of the course that the students and I enjoy very much is the presentations by invited guest speakers.

So far this semester, we have had the great honor of having Mr. Jeff Hescock, Assistant Vice Chancellor, Environmental Health & Safety and Emergency Management at UMass Amherst, and Ms. Nicole Barbosa,  American Red Cross Community Disaster Program Manager - Western Massachusetts, speak in the class.

Mr. Hescock and his team have done outstanding work in support of the health and safety of all of us at UMass Amherst and even the neighboring community. Students very much relate to him and he shared with us his career trajectory, his focus on relationships and community building, and the numerous disasters that his team has responded to from the meningitis outbreak at UMass Amherst and the COVID-19 pandemic to the recent Olympia Drive fires in Amherst, MA. The latter fires burnt down a private apartment complex off-campus and one under construction, where the fire started. Over 200 students resided in the complex. Luckily, there were no injuries but housing had to be quickly found for those affected as well as the replacement of many essentials, destroyed in the fire.

Mr. Hescock spoke on February 12, 2026 this semester and,  since the date was close to Valentine's Day, I surprised everyone with these special cupcakes, which were enjoyed. 

I am a big proponent of writing Thank You letters to our guest speakers and in copying the letters to their supervisors and also share photos. 

Ms. Nicole Barbosa spoke to the class on March 5, 2026 and her passion in working for the American Red Cross (ARC) resonated with all of us. She has worked with Mr. Hescock, most recently, in the response to the Olympia Drive fires.  

The ARC has been very innovative and focuses much more now on recovery and reconstruction and also in providing victims of disasters financial support. The ARC has 7 levels of disasters. Ms. Barbosa told of one of their volunteers, who has been with the ARC for 44 years. The ARC relies heavily on volunteers for disaster response. Ms. Barbosa was such an inspiring guest speaker and an outstanding Professor for a Day. Our great Isenberg Dean Ann P. Massey signed the framed certificate that I presented her with.

I was touched by the beautiful letter I received from Mr. Ryan Avery, Mr. Barbosa's supervisor at the ARC, in response to my letter of appreciation for her guest lecture. Mr. Ryan Avery is a Regional Disaster Officer for the ARC.

We are very lucky to have in our community such incredible experts in disaster management.

Thank you for your service and for sharing some of your very valuable lessons learned with my students.

Looking Forward to Giving a Distinguished Engineering Lecture at Purdue University

I have been enjoying working on the presentation that I will be giving at Purdue University, after our mutual spring breaks next week.

I was actually scheduled to deliver a Distinguished Lecture in Engineering at Purdue in February, 2025 but my flights were cancelled because of snowstorms so we rescheduled for 2026 and in late March.

A few years back I was offered a faculty position at Purdue but I received a counteroffer from UMass Amherst, so I stayed at the Isenberg School of Management. It will be nice to be back at Purdue and to see its growth and changes.

My talk will cover a lot of territory on research I have done with wonderful colleagues and PhD students on agricultural supply chain networks, with a focus on policies and international trade as well as disruptions (and there have been and continue to be many) plus resilience.

And, after my presentation, there will be a panel, which will allow for additional discussions.

Travel and the exchange of ideas are truly wonderful aspects of being an academic. I am very grateful to all institutions and the faculty, students, and staff who are engaged in organizing seminar series!

Front Page Coverage of Our Panel on Ukraine

Last Friday, we had our panel on Ukraine, which included both faculty from the Isenberg School (Dr. Bogdan Prokopovych) and Amherst College (Drs. Nataliia Bychkova and Myroslav Kryven) as well as recently arrived exchange students (Alisa Mikhieieva, Olesia Rozhanska, and Yuliia Zaitseva) from the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) in Ukraine. The panel was to mark the 4th anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The event took place at the Isenberg School of Management with help from the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter and its President, Samira Samadi. It was an honor to moderate the panel.

Below is a collage of photos from the event with the announcement.

In the audience was Sam Gelinas, who is a journalist for the Daily Hampshire Gazette, DHG, and, today (after so much that has transpired in the world since our panel), his article on the panel was published on the front page of the DHG.

The link to the article is: https://gazettenet.com/2026/03/02/ukrainians-reflect-on-war-four-years-on/

I was very busy with teaching all day today, and now a heavy snow is falling, but Professor Ladimer S. Nagurney kindly went to purchase 3 hardcopies of the DHG and then delivered them to the exchange students from Ukraine.  It's not every day that one makes the front page of the newspaper!

And for additional photos and discussions, please visit the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter website for their writeup on the event: https://websites.umass.edu/umassinf/2026/03/02/panel-discussion-faculty-and-student-perspectives-on-the-4th-anniversary-of-russias-full-scale-invasion-of-ukraine-2/

I am very grateful for all the support.

We Must Not Forget Ukraine's Plight

UPDATE: Since this blogpost was published, I am delighted that our Letter to the Editor was posted online on masslive.com on February 18, 2026. It can be read (one needs to scroll down) on the following link https://www.masslive.com/opinion/2026/02/lets-see-action-on-audit-of-state-legislature-letters-to-the-republican.html

As we approach the 4th anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, it is important to appropriately acknowledge it.

Last week, Professor Ladimer S. Nagurney and I had a Letter to the Editor published in the biggest western Massachusetts newspaper: The Springfield Republican. The letter, "We must not forget Ukraine's plight," appeared in the hard copy of this newspaper on February 12, 2026. It has not yet appeared online on masslive.com.

Below I am posting it (apologies for the small print).

We worked diligently on this letter and are grateful that the publisher of The Springfield Republican, Larry Parnass, accepted it.

It has been shared with relatives and also with Razom for Ukraine and the UNWLA (Soyuz Ukrainok), organizations who have been outstanding advocates for support of Ukraine.

And, in my previous post, I provided information on a panel of faculty and exchange students from Ukraine that I organized and that I will moderate, with support from the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter: https://annanagurney.blogspot.com/2026/02/panel-at-isenberg-school-to-mark-4th.html

Slava Ukraini!

Panel at the Isenberg School to Mark the 4th Anniversary of Russia's Full-Scale Invasion of Ukraine

On February 27, 2026, a special panel of faculty from Amherst College and UMass Amherst and exchange students from the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) , who recently arrived at UMass Amherst, will take place at the Isenberg School of Management.

The panel was organized to mark the 4th anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Below is the poster designed by this year's President of the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter, Samira Samadi, who is also my PhD student.

The panelists will consist of faculty: Professors Nataliia Bychkova and Myroslav Kryven of Amherst College and my colleague at the Isenberg School - Professor Bogdan Prokopovych as well as the KSE exchange students: Alisa Mikjieieva, Olesia Rozhanska, and Yuliia Zaitseva.

UMass Amherst signed a series of MOUs with KSE, shortly after the full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, and, to-date, we have had two cohorts of Virtual Scholars in Ukraine working with faculty at UMass Amherst. The 2023-2024 cohort had 25 Virtual Scholars at various universities in Ukraine and the 2024-2025 consisted of 10 Virtual Scholars, all of whom were "matched" with faculty at the Isenberg School of Management.

And, since 2023, UMass Amherst has welcomed multiple exchange students from KSE. The students on the panel are now taking classes at UMass Amherst. One is majoring in psychology and two in business economics.

The panel, I am sure, will be very timely and informative.

Thrilled that Our Paper on Tariffs and Effects on Labor in Supply Chains is Published Free Access in JORS!

My Isenberg School of Management PhD student, Samira Samadi, and I are thrilled that our paper on ad valorem tariffs and their effects on labor in competitive supply chains is now published in the Journal of Operational Research (JORS). JORS is the flagship journal of the Operational Research Society, which is based in the United Kingdom.

The paper is titled, "Ad Valorem Tariffs in Global Supply Chain Networks and Impacts on Labor." The model is a game theory one of firms competing in an oligopolistic manner, each one seeking to maximize its profits, in the presence of tariffs. The firms seek to determine the optimal production of commodities and their distribution as well as the labor needed, with wages and productivity of labor included.

Illustrative examples are provided along with a global soybean trade case study. Numerical results reveal how such tariffs shift trade flows, reshape labor allocation, and affect demand prices as well as profits, with labor shortages and cost disruptions further negatively compounding the effects.

The Editor in Chief, (EIC) of JORS, Kostas Nikolopoulos of Durham University, has kindly made the paper free access and the link to it is below: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01605682.2025.2592758

With tariffs having wide impacts, both locally and globally, this is one of the very first papers to quantify the effects on labor, trade flows, and profits. We thank the EIC for the expert handling of our paper as well as the anonymous reviewers who provided valuable feedback on the original paper.

Excited to Be Teaching My Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare Class

The morning temperatures in Amherst, MA have been below 0 degrees the past few days and it has been a challenging winter with a lot of snow.

However, yesterday the new "spring" semester at UMass Amherst began and it was energizing to meet the students in my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare class. The course meets Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 8:30AM at the Isenberg School of Management.

The students come not only from the business school but also from the School of Public Health, the Riccio College of Engineering, and even the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences.

I arrived in the classroom at 8:00AM because I wanted to make sure the technology was working well.

The first student arrived shortly thereafter and he drove from Boston (about 2 hours). He is working towards 2 Master's degrees at the Isenberg School - an MBA and a Master's in Business Analytics. Another student is also working on these two degrees and has 3 children under the age of 4. I was so impressed and inspired by the students - I asked them to share some background about themselves and their interest in the course, and also to provide a "fun fact."

One student is a lawyer and several of the students have traveled widely even during the January break (to Croatia and Japan). One of the students is on an athletic team and will be traveling a lot to games.

I told the students that I have some excellent guest speakers lined up and am also planning on a field trip. They were very excited about having a field trip.

The students give us hope (much needed these days).

I am very much looking forward to an engaging and exciting semester.

Thrilled to Receive the Galleys for Our Tariffs, Rerouting, and Supply Chain Paper for the Rockafellar Volume

It has been a very busy "winter break" with the revising of a 50 page paper with collaborators, the reviewing of multiple journal articles, and also the handling of papers submitted to journals as an Associate Editor. And, of course, the holiday season, with the accompanying festivities also needed attention! Plus, I have also been busy updating my lectures for two classes that I will be teaching this spring at the Isenberg School of Management.

I was delighted to receive from the publisher Springer galleys for the paper, "Multicommodity Trade, Tariffs, and Rerouting," which is in press as a chapter for a very special edited volume in honor of Tyrrell "Terry" Rockafellar on the occasion of his 90th birthday! The volume is titled, "Convex and Variational Analysis with Applications." The volume is edited by Professors Rassias and Pardalos and was originally scheduled for publication in mid December 2025 but now the publication date on the Springer page is March 16, 2026: https://link.springer.com/book/9783032078599.

The paper, which I co-authored with my Isenberg School of Management PhD student, Samirasadat "Samira" Samadi, will be chapter 16 in this special volume.

The galleys (I was delighted) were in great shape and no changes were needed!

Thanks to the typesetters for their outstanding work. We are very much looking forward to the publication of this volume, which I am hearing will have 27 chapters.