Looking Forward to Speaking at Texas A&M in its INFORMS Student Chapter and Dow Chemical Speaker Series

I am very much looking forward to being at Texas A&M to speak this coming Friday!

Last week, one of my colleagues at the Isenberg School, Dr. John D. Wells, who is the Associate Dean for Professional Programs, and has both a Master's and PhD from Texas A&M, told me to practice saying "Howdy!" when he heard that I would be speaking there.

I was invited by the award-winning Texas A&M INFORMS Student Chapter, and since I am a big proponent of such chapters, and have also served as the Faculty Advisor to the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter for almost a decade, this was an invitation that I could not refuse.

My talk in the series is also sponsored by Dow Chemical and by the great INFORMS Speakers Program (I may be a bit biased since I served on the committee for this program and also chaired it), which I am a big fan of. At the Isenberg School, we have also invited speakers under the INFORMS Speakers Program (Dr. John Birge of the University of Chicago and Dr. Sheldon Jacobson of the University of Illinois, to name two). INFORMS pays, upon approval,  the travel expenses of the speaker, and the host institution pays for the on-site costs. Given the distance between Amherst and College Station and a two-legged flight, I will be overnighting there. Since I have never been to Texas A&M and have quite a few wonderful colleagues there, I am very much looking forward to visiting! I also am very excited about seeing the students there.

I have starting working on my presentation, which is entitled: "Networks Against Time: From Food to Pharma."

 

 It will be interesting to see the terrain there -- the last time that I was in Texas was at the INFORMS conference in Austin.  Prior to that Texas trip, I spoke in Dallas at SMU, courtesy of the Dallas / Forth Worth INFORMS chapter, and that experience was quite the adventure!

Upcoming Travel and Hosting Speakers

As the new semester is gearing up, it is exciting to be able to both travel to give talks as well as to host speakers. Next week, I will be flying to Dallas, Texas, to give a talk, "Synergies and Vulnerabilities of Supply Chain Networks in a Global Economy." I will be hosted by the Dallas/Forth Worth Chapter of INFORMS (The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences). My gracious host will be Dr. Patricia Neri, who works for Southwest Airlines. The talk will take place at Southern Methodist University.

The following week, we will begin our Spring 2009 Speaker Series in Operations Research / Management Science at the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst. Our first speaker, on Friday, February 20, 2009, will be Professor Ellis Johnson of Georgia Tech, who will be talking about Operations Research and Air Traffic Problems. We are delighted that Professor Johnson, who is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, will be inaugurating out Spring Series! UMass Amherst has issued a press release for the series. This will be the tenth semester of this Speaker Series which is organized by the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter. I serve as the chapter's Faculty Advisor and it is so rewarding to see the enthusiasm of the students in this endeavor. The series adds so much to the intellectual life of the school and university and the students can hardly wait for it to start!