A Walk Down Memory Lane - I Thoroughly Enjoyed Presenting on 20 Years of EURO Conferences

Congratulations to the European Association of Operational Research Societies (EURO) on its 50th anniversary, which we recently celebrated at the great EURO Conference in Leeds, UK, June 22-25, 2025  https://euro2025leeds.uk/outline-programme/. I am writing this post, which is the 5th one in a series on this conference, while in Edinburgh.

It was a very busy, engaging conference for me, with 2,000 delegates from across the globe. I was honored to give 3 presentations. The first two (on tariffs and trade in the Making an Impact session, and on war risk insurance in the Insurance and finance session) I have already blogged about.  My third presentation was: "Reflections on Wonderful OR Experiences at EURO Conferences Over 20 Years."

This talk I gave on the last day of the conference. I  am very grateful to Professor Gerhard-Wilhelm "Willi" Weber for inviting me to speak in the session: "Celebrating 50 Years of EURO."

The session presenters and their titles:

Reflections on Wonderful OR Experiences at EURO Conferences Over 20 Years

Anna Nagurney

Why the 1970’s Was an Important Era in Operational Research, with Personal Reflections

Jyrki Wallenius

Lessons I learned from EURO

Emilio Carrizosa

Fifty years of Data Envelopment Analysis

Ali Emrouznejad, Anna Mergoni, Kristof De Witte.

The session was chaired by the Immediate Past President of EURO - Professor Anita Schöbel.

I have posted the slide deck of my presentation on the Supernetwork Center website: 

https://supernet.isenberg.umass.edu/visuals/EURO20YearsNagurney.pdf

In my slide deck I have many photos of conferees at EURO Conferences in Reykjavik, Poznan, Glasgow, Dublin, and Copenhagen. I was touched that several colleagues, whose photos I had included in my presentation, came to my talk in Leeds! 

Afterwards, we took a group photo, which included the session chair,  Professor Anita Schöbel,  the session organizer, Professor Gerhard-Wilhelm "Willi" Weber, and Graham Rand, who was mentioned in several of the presentations, including mine.

The EURO conference have been expertly organized, with excellent scientific sessions, and, above all, I now can consider many of the wonderful researchers and practitioners that I have met at these conferences to be friends. Science is about research, education, and, most of all, it is about people!

Presented Our Integrated War Risk Insurance Paper at EURO in Leeds

The outstanding EURO 2025 conference in Leeds is now over and delegates have disbursed. Scientific conferences are essential to knowledge exchange and also to networking and building communities.

It was an honor to present our recently published paper, "Integrated Crop and Cargo War Risk Insurance: Application to Ukraine," in the International Transactions in Operational Research (ITOR) at this conference.

The paper was co-authored with my Isenberg School of Management PhD student Ismael Pour and Professor Borys Kormych of the Odesa Law Academy in Ukraine. Professor Kormych was a Virtual Scholar, in the first and second cohorts, thanks to the partnership between UMass Amherst and the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE). We enjoyed our collaboration very much.

The paper can be accessed here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/itor.70038?af=R

The paper was presented on Monday, June 23, 2025, in a very relevant session on Data Science in  Insurance and Finance. Information on the session is below.

Integrated crop and war risk insurance

Anna Nagurney, Ismael Pour, Borys Kormych

Finding robust profiles of mental well-being across Europe

Irene Albarran

Premium calculation using Parametric Quantile Regression for insurance count data

Fabio Baione, Davide Biancalana, Aurora Ferri

Implementing non-dominated sorting into asset preselection within portfolio problem

Tomáš Tichý, David Neděla, Sergio Ortobelli Lozza

We took a selfie of the speakers and the session chair.

Thanks to all who came to our session, including Christina Phillips! The link to our slide deck, from which our full presentation can be downloaded, is here: https://supernet.isenberg.umass.edu/visuals/EURO-2025-NPK.pdf

Excellent Journal Editorial Board Meetings at the EURO Conference in Leeds

The outstanding EURO Conference in Leeds, UK, is now over and this is the second blogpost in a series about this conference. I have been coming to this OR conference since 2006, which was in Reykjavik, Iceland.

One facet of these conferences that I very much enjoy is the editorial board meetings. I have the honor of serving on both the editorial boards of the International Transactions in Operational Research (ITOR) and the European Journal of Operational Research (EJOR). ITOR is the flagship journal of IFORS (International Federation of Operational Research Societies) and EJOR is the flagship journal of EURO (European Association of Operational Research Societies), which, at this year's conference, we celebrated its 50th anniversary. EURO is part of IFORS.

Celso Ribeiro, the EIC of ITOR, travelled all the way from Brazil and our lunch time meeting on Monday, June 23, 2025, was wonderful. The journal is doing very well with thousands of submissions each year. A highlight for me is always seeing Celso and also fellow Associate Editors. 

I enjoyed meeting Sunil Tiwari, who is in the above photo with Kathy Stecke and me. Kathy was the first conferee that I encountered and that was at our hotel in the elevator in Leeds.

And, on Tuesday, June 24, 2025, Elsevier, the publisher of EJOR, treated us to a nice lunch and the EIC, Roman Slowinski, shared with us a lot of good news about EJOR. I had the pleasure of being seated next to Michael Yearworth, one of the main editors,  and Shaunna Whittle, publisher of EJOR.

Below is a collage of  photos taken at the editorial board meeting and after lunch.

Thanks so much to the Editors, and to all the Associate Editors, reviewers, and authors of articles published in these important journals that advance scientific knowledge in OR as well as its relevance to so many disciplines!

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.

The EURO 2019 Conference in Dublin Brings Operations Researchers Together From Around the Globe

The fabulous EURO 2019 conference, which took place June 23-26 at UCD in Dublin, Ireland is now over but the impact of the scientific exchanges, the renewal of friendships and new ones made, along with wonderful memories, will sustain many for a long time to come.

It was a conference that included tutorials, keynote talks, numerous fascinating and very timely panels, as well as scientific paper presentations on Operations Research. The organizers and organizing committee are congratulated on the success of the conference. Special thanks to Professors Sean McGarraghy and Luis Eduardo Neves Gouveia, the conference chairs, for even sending me a personal thank you this morning for my tutorial at the conference!

From the very beginning of our arrival in Dublin, there were numerous surprises - upon our arrival, we saw Melissa Moore, the Executive Director of INFORMS, and, soon thereafter, Mary Magrogan of INFORMS. The organizers had put many of the invited speakers up at the lovely Radisson Blu hotel, in walking distance of the university. It was, hence, very special, to be seeing colleagues from many countries at breakfast, including IFORS President Professor Maria Grazia Speranza, or on the lovely grounds, including Professor Kash Barker, in the photo with me below!

One aspect of the conference that I very much enjoyed was seeing my former doctoral students, now professors, Dr. Sara Saberi of WPI in the USA and Dr. Dmytro Matsypura of the University of Sydney in Australia, along with my long-time collaborator, Professor Patrizia Daniele of the University of Catania in Italy, who was also a member of the organizing committee.

I had a packed schedule. Monday afternoon of the conference, I was a panelist on the Women in OR panel, which had a terrific audience and discussions. Below I am standing with Professors Christina Phillips and Paula Carroll next to the lovely flowers.

 

This EURO conference was especially thrilling since Professor Martine Labbe, in the photo above next to me, who was also on the Women in OR panel, was named the first female recipient of the EURO Gold Medal award! We are standing next to Professors Maria Paola Scaparra and Annunziata Esposito Amideo.

And, we even had a male on this panel - Professor Daniele Vigo! Many thanks to the audience, including quite a few males, for their insights and suggestions as to how we can build a stronger community of nurturing females (as well as other less represented groups) in Operations Research and in science, in general! I do believe that we have started to strengthen our community in this regard and I also especially recognized WORMS - Women in Operations Research and the Management Science, a forum of INFORMS.

Earlier on Monday, we had an editorial board meeting of the Wiley journal, International Transactions in Operational Research, expertly edited by Professor Celso Ribeiro of Brazil. A photo of those in attendance is below (some had talks to give at the same time, and they were missed, including Dr. Mauricio Resende).

Also, among the award recipients at EURO was Dr. Paolo Toth and he is the rightmost figure in the photo above. It was delightful to see so many colleagues from multiple continents. I wish there had been more time to chat with everyone, including Professor Laura Albert of the University of Wisconsin Madison! I very much appreciated the lovely flowers and thoughtfulness of the organizers with even a gift presented to me after my tutorial on Tuesday morning, from 8:30-10AM.

Due to many requests, my tutorial slides can be downloaded from here. Special thanks to Professor Matthias Ehrgott, a member of the EURO organizing committee, for his wonderful introduction of me at my tutorial. I have known Professor Ehrgott for many years and have delightful memories of dining with him not only in the UK but even in New Zealand.

Many thanks to all those who came to my tutorial, including Professors Roman Slowinski and Roman Snajder! My father's name was also Roman.

Also, on Tuesday, I heard that several outstanding colleagues, several of whom were at EURO Dublin, including Dr. Stephan Onggo, had received large grants from EPSCR! It was such a happy day! Below I am standing with Dr. Onggo, whom I had the pleasure of personally congratulating. There will be great continuing research done on disaster relief and healthcare!

It was terrific to see our most recent Dynamics of Disaster book on display at the Springer booth at the conference. Below I am standing with Springer Senior Editor Christian Rauscher.

And, I love the element of surprise and serendipity that one often experiences at an international conference. In walking outside after my tutorial I saw a colleague from UMass Amherst, Professor Maciej Ciesielski of the College of Engineering, who wanted to attend my tutorial but took the bus to DCU rather than UCD and missed it!.

Tuesday night was the conference gala banquet at the Aviva rugby stadium, which was a very interesting experience at which I even got to see Professor Ann Campbell and her family who traveled all the way from Iowa! And it was wonderful to also see a collaborator of Ann's, Professor Jan Ehmke, who had been my host at an OR conference in Berlin two Septembers ago!

 On Wednesday morning (at 8:30AM), I spoke at the Making an Impact panel, which was part of a stream of sessions.  I had been invited just the week before by Dr. Joachim Gromicho because another panelist had a medical emergency. Photos of the panelists and of some audience members  are below. I was very impressed by the energy, enthusiasm, and wisdom of all at this event.

And, on Wednesday afternoon, it was time for a session on supply chains that I had organized. Dr. Saberi spoke on her latest work on sustainable supply chains and freight and I delivered a paper just accepted for publication in the Journal of Global Optimization on tariffs and world trade, co-authored with Professor Ladimer S. Nagurney, and my Isenberg School of Management doctoral student Deniz Besik. We had an audience of researchers from the US, Italy, Morocco, the Netherlands, and France at our session!

And, would you believe, on our last morning in Dublin, before I spoke at IBM, I met at breakfast Dr. Sarah Marie Jordaan, a Professor at Johns Hopkins, whose brother is a colleague at UMass Amherst. She had even recently hosted one of our doctoral students there, who will soon be a Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, Dr. Destenie Nock. It is truly a fabulous Operations Research world!

Then, on Thursday morning, I was off to give a talk at IBM Dublin, and then onwards to additional conferences, with a weekend in beautiful London.

Many thanks to Dr. Rahul Nair and to Dr. Sergiy Zhuk of IBM for their outstanding hospitality and great discussions of their amazing research!

And, at the Dublin airport, who was at a neighboring gate - my collaborator, Professor Patrizia Daniele, heading back home to Catania, Italy!

My next conference is in Greece - the 4th International Conference on Dynamics of Disasters, which I co-organized (again) with Professors Pardalos and Kotsireas. It will be hot there!

Supernetwork Center Associates at Euro INFORMS in Rome, Italy

I returned last week from Europe, where I have been spending part of my sabbatical as a Visiting Professor of Operations Management at the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.

This sabbatical has been fabulous and I am now writing several research papers, inspired by my time in Europe and discussions with colleagues in Sweden.

The Euro INFORMS Conference will be taking place soon -- July 1-4, 2013, in Rome, Italy, and I am pleased to report that several Supernetwork Center Associates will be taking part and that they represent 4 different countries! It is wonderful to see so many operations researchers and management scientists converging from around the globe for this conference!

The last time that I was in Rome, Italy, was May 28-30, 2009, when I delivered a plenary talk at NET 2009: Evolution and Complexity at the Sapienza University of Rome (the photo below is from that conference.)
 

Although I won't be going to Euro INFORMS, our research group will be well-represented there.

Being the Director of the Virtual Center for Supernetworks, which I founded in 2001, has been incredibly rewarding and I am very pleased that we have sustained its richness of activities in terms of research, education, and outreach and that our website gets visited every day internationally. We have built a community of Supernetwork Center Associates, many of whom received their PhDs from the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst, that collaborates and supports one another.

Conferences are the perfect venues in which to reconnect face to face and the Euro INFORMS Conference will be bringing together Center Associates: Professor Patrizia Daniele of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Catania in Italy, Professor Dmytro Matsypura of the School of Business at the University of Sydney in Australia, Professor Tina Wakolbinger of the Vienna University of Economics and Business, and Professor Jose M. Cruz of the School of Business at the University of Connecticut.

Patrizia Daniele has organized a session on Recent Advances in Dynamics of Variational Inequalities I and will be speaking on: Variational Inequalities and Applications to Network Models in session II. In the latter, Tina Wakolbinger and Jose Cruz will deliver their joint paper: Applications of Variational Inequalities in Supply Chain Management — Status Quo and Future Directions. Finally, Dmytro Matsypura will present on: Incremental Network Design with Maximum Flows. His paper is joint work with Martin Savelsbergh and  Thomas Kalinowski.

And, since I could not resist, below are photos of several of the Center Associates with me, when Professor Daniele and her husband visited the Supernetwork Laboratory for Computation and Visualization at the Isenberg School at UMass Amherst, back in the summer of 2004, July 9-10.

In the photo immediately above, Tina Wakolbinger is the second one from the left, and Jose Cruz is standing behind me (I'm in the flowered dress). Dmytro Matsypura is behind Patrizia, who is also next to me.
 
It is wonderful to see the academic social network flourishing!