Proud to Have Had Our Work Presented at the Disaster Risk Reduction Conference in Kyoto, Japan

Last week, my collaborator, Professor Myroslava Kushnir of the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) in Lviv, presented our paper, "Social Network Analysis of Civilian Support Networks for the Ukrainian Military," at the The 10th IFIP WG5.15 Conference on Information Technology in Disaster Risk Reduction (itdrr) in Kyoto, Japan: https://lnkd.in/eAu3_qyN. 

The paper will be published in the conference proceedings. Myroslava was a Virtual Scholar in the outstanding global partnership between the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE),  thanks to the UMass Amherst Office of Global Affairs and the Isenberg School of Management, UMass Amherst.  I have been working with Myroslava for over two years now and it has been a pleasure to collaborate with her.

Myroslava, in the above photo, is standing with Professor Renata Konrad of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), who presented a poster at this conference. Our collaboration with Professor Konrad produced a paper that was published in the ISCRAM, Münster, Germany, 2024 Proceedings: https://lnkd.in/eFkZ94nB

Myroslava very much enjoyed the conference as well as being in Japan. I have been to both Tokyo and Yokahama for conferences and had extraordinary experiences there and wonderful memories.

Myroslava returned safely back to the Ukrainian Catholic University, where she teaches. I would have loved to have gone to this conference in Kyoto but, with my teaching schedule and upcoming INFORMS conference in Atlanta (next week), I could not make it. I am very proud and happy that she went, after traveling a great distance,  and presented our paper. Thanks also to the reviewers of our paper for their helpful comments and suggestions!

Working with Colleagues in Ukraine Is Inspiring

Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, I have been deeply involved in supporting higher education there. I had already been quite active, due to my affiliation with the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) as both a member of its Board of Directors (BOD) and its International Academic Board over several years, but, in March, 2022, my connections intensified since I was elected one of the four Co-Chairs of the BOD of KSE https://kse.ua/community/stories/board-of-directors/.  Shortly thereafter, my university - UMass Amherst - established a global partnership with KSE. The partnership included both a student exchange student program (very successful) as well as a Virtual Scholar in Residence Program to reduce brain drain from Ukraine. We have now had two sets of cohorts of Virtual Scholars and I have enjoyed working with several of the scholars.

My colleagues in Ukraine inspire me and I believe that the research that we have done together is strengthened through our collaborations.

I am honored and delighted that Professor Myroslava Kushnir from the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) in Lviv and I have had our latest paper accepted for presentation at the Information Technology in Disaster Risk Reduction Conference at Kyoto University https://itdrr.org/conference/itdrr2025/. Our paper, "Social Network Analysis of Civilian Support Networks for the Ukrainian Military," emphasizes that Russia’s war on Ukraine is not only a geopolitical conflict but also a humanitarian, ecological, social and economic disaster. Our study applies Social Network Analysis (SNA) to explore the interaction structure between civil society organizations (CSOs) and military units in Ukraine during the ongoing full-scale war. Dr. Kushnir has been a Virtual Scholar in both cohorts. Our first joint paper, "Civilian-Military Integration in Ukrainian Defense Supply Chain," co-authored with Renata Konrad of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, was published in the Proceedings of the International ISCRAM Conference: https://ojs.iscram.org/index.php/Proceedings/article/view/49

And just a few days ago, at the great EURO Conference in Leeds, UK, I presented a paper co-authored with my Isenberg School of Management PhD student, Ismael Pour, and Professor Borys Kormych of the Odesa Law Academy. The paper, "Integrated Crop and Cargo War Risk Insurance: Application to Ukraine," was recently published in the International Transactions in Operational Research (ITOR): https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/itor.70038 Professor Kormych had also been a Virtual Scholar in the two cohorts. 

And, with Virtual Scholar Pavlo Martyshev and Professor Oleg Nivievskyi of KSE, we have published 4 papers, along with my Isenberg School of Management PhD student Dana Hassani. I am very proud of this work. The papers that have appeared in journals are: 

"A Multiperiod Multicommodity Capacitated International Agricultural Trade Network Equilibrium Model with Applications to Ukraine in Wartime," Dana Hassani, Anna Nagurney, Oleg Nivievskyi, and Pavlo Martyshev, Transportation Science 59(1): (2025), pp 143-164,

"Multicommodity International Agricultural Trade Network Equilibrium: Competition for Limited Production and Transportation Capacity Under Disaster Scenarios with Implications for Food Security,"Anna Nagurney, Dana Hassani, Oleg Nivievskyi, and Pavlo Martyshev, European Journal of Operational Research 314(1): (2024), pp 1127-1142,

"Exchange Rates and Multicommodity International Trade: Insights from Spatial Price Equilibrium Modeling with Policy Instruments via Variational Inequalities," Anna Nagurney, Dana Hassani, Oleg Nivievskyi, and Pavlo Martyshev, Journal of Global Optimization 87: (2023), pp 1-30.

Plus, we have the following paper: "Quantification of International Trade Network Performance Under Disruptions to Supply, Transportation, and Demand Capacity, and Exchange Rates in Disasters,"Anna Nagurney, Dana Hassani, Oleg Nivievskyi, and Pavlo Martyshev, published in Dynamics of Disasters - From Natural Phenomena to Human Activity, I.S. Kotsireas, A. Nagurney, P.M. Pardalos, S. Pickl, C. Vogiatzis, Editors, Springer Nature Switzerland AG (2024), pp 151-179.

Dana Hassani has received 4 research awards (2 from the OIM Department and 2 from the Isenberg School) for his publications. These are significant recognitions.

I have written additional article with Professor Nivievskyi and am extremely proud of the paper, "Ukraine - Addressing the Domestic Crisis and the Effects of the War on Global Food Systems," which was published by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences: https://www.pas.va/en/publications/scripta-varia/sv154pas/nivievskyi.html

I have also worked with Professor Elena Besedina of KSE. She was a Virtual Scholar in the first cohort. The paper that we co-authored is: "A Multicommodity Spatial Price Equilibrium Model with Exchange Rates and Non-Tariff Measures for Agri-Food International Trade," Anna Nagurney and Elena Besedina, Operations Research Forum 4: (2023), 84.

My colleagues and collaborators in Ukraine have dealt with drones and missiles and losses of family members and friends and much too much time in shelters. They continue to teach and to conduct research under very challenging conditions. What they do to support their students and knowledge discovery in wartime is heroic. I thank them from the bottom of my heart and look forward to peace and prosperity for Ukraine and its freedom-loving citizenry.

Fascinating Presentation on Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) for Disaster Risk Reduction

This past Friday, we had the pleasure of hearing from Dr. Marta Vicarelli, who spoke in our UMass Amherst INFORMS Speaker Series. Her presentation at the Isenberg School of Management was fascinating. In this Speaker Series, we highlight thought leaders who are breaking barriers and boundaries.

With University of Massachusetts Amherst emphasizing sustainability, this presentation could not have been more timely. The topics discussed included biodiversity loss, and mitigation and adaptation as responses to climate change. Dr. Vicarelli structured her seminar in a very engaging way asking whether 

1. Are NBS effective in increasing resilience and 

2. Are they cost-effective? 

Dr. Vicarelli is a leader in NBS and shared with us many highlights of her important studies. There were many questions from the audience. It was clear that NBS can be powerful mechanisms for disaster risk reduction. We could have listened for hours! The lunch afterwards at The Commonwealth Restaurant at UMass Amherst was lovely and our conversations continued. Below is a collage of photos from the event, along with the poster, which was kindly designed by Ismael Pour, who is the UMass Amherst INFORMS Chapter President this year. It was great to have faculty from my OIM Department take part and also many of the Chapter Officers!

Some Highlights of the 2023 INFORMS Conference in Phoenix

It is truly extraordinary that this year's INFORMS Annual Meeting attracted over 6,000 delegates to Phoenix. The conference took place October 15-28, 2023 and convened operations researchers and analytics professionals from academia, practice and government. All continents except for Antarctica were represented and the INFORMS President Laura Albert remarked that, next year, perhaps even someone from that continent will join us.

To me, INFORMS is about the people/members, and I especially delighted in seeing several of my former PhD students, who are now thriving as professors at various universities (Dmytro Matsypura at the University of Sydney in Australia, Deniz Besik at the University of Richmond, Shivani Shukla at the University of San Francisco and Sara Saberi at WPI) and having one of my PhD students (Dana Hassani) present at his first such conference the paper that we co-authored with Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) colleagues in Ukraine. It was published in the Journal of Global Optimization as the lead article in an issue and was on display at the Springer booth in the Exhibit Hall. We got to keep the stunning Journal of Global Optimization issue. It was also very special to see both my Labor and Supply Chain Networks book, published in 2023, and the Dynamics of Disasters book that I co-edited with Ilias S. Kotsireas, Panos M. Pardalos and Arsenios Tsokas on display at the Springer booth. Lovely to chat with Pardalos, his wife and son in Phoenix!

Seeing colleagues for the first time in person was also extra special since, in the pandemic, new connections were made virtually but only recently have the travel and the face to face exchanges become possible (and are so very welcome). The technical sessions and plenary and keynote talks were excellent and not all could be attended because quite a few took place "in parallel."

I thoroughly enjoyed various board meetings, including that of the INFORMS Magazine Editorial Advisory Board with Kara Tucker and committee members at 8AM on Sunday morning, as well as the Editorial Board meeting of the International Transactions in Operational Research (ITOR), led by its Editor, Celso C. Ribeiro. The Editorial Board meeting of the Journal of Global Optimization, whose Editor is Sergiy Butenko, was also very enjoyable and the food was excellent - thank you, Springer, the publisher!

It was an honor to present an invited paper and also to speak on two panels: one on optimization and community resilience and the other one - Meet the ITOR Editors! Thanks to Professor Nazanin Tajik of Mississippi State University for inviting me to speak in her session. I was so honored to even receive a gift and special note from her in appreciation. My presentation on defense critical supply chains and risk management can be viewed here. Our other presentations are posted also on the Supernetworks Center site. The resilience panel did not have panelists' slides but it was so good that it went way over and I missed the WORMS (Women in Operations Research and the Management Sciences) lunch! Thanks to Himadri Sen Gupta of the University of Oklahoma for organizing this panel and to his PhD advisor - Andres Gonzalez!

The business meetings were very well-attended and I especially enjoyed the Transportation Science & Logistics Society business meeting at which Hani S. Mahmassani received the Robert Herman Lifetime Achievement Award in Transportation Science.

The INFORMS Fellows luncheon at which the newly inducted Fellows were recognized was deeply engaging and pleasant. It was an honor to share a table with Roman Slowinski, who traveled with his wife from Poznan, Poland, and well as other colleagues, including Ben Lev and Candi Yano!

It was delightful to meet new colleagues and to reconnect with many others. I wish that I could list everyone that made this conference so memorable for me - you remain in my pleasant memories - thank you.

Congratulations to all who received awards! Extra proud that our UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter was recognized with the INFORMS Magna Cum Laude Award.

Below is a collage constructed as a remembrance of some of the highlights. Many thanks to the organizers and to all those who took part.

Thanks to ALL Who Took Part in Our International Conference on Dynamics of Disasters in Greece

It has been an incredibly busy, yet energizing, several few weeks with two international conferences on different continents and different seasons (summer and winter).

I'd like to take the opportunity to thank all those who took part in the 6th International Conference on Dynamics of Disasters, which took place in Piraeus, Greece, July 3-6, 2023.

The below collage was constructed to capture a few of the highlights.

The venue of the conference was the Historical Library of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation in Piraeus.

We had the pleasure of hearing from outstanding plenary speakers, both practitioners and academics.

It was inspiring to see conferees representing many different countries including: Austria, Germany, Nepal, Japan, Canada, Greece,  Italy, Turkey, the UK, and the US.

In a period in history with compounding disasters, the exchange of knowledge and best practices and working together to address the great challenges that we are faced with are needed more than ever.

Information about the conference, including the presenters and their talk titles can be found on the conference website.

I had the pleasure of presenting work done with my PhD student at the Isenberg School of Management Dana Hassani and colleagues at the Kyiv School of Economics: Professor Oleg Nivievskyi and Dr. Pavlo Martyshev. The link to the slidedeck of the presentation can be accessed here.

Not everyone could join us because of visa and other extenuating circumstances. Sadly, in April, Professor Urmila Pyakurel of Nepal passed away. She was an avid participant in our previous Dynamics of Disasters conference. We paid a tribute to her in Piraeus. A PhD student of hers presented on their joint work. Urmila lost her life to cancer, which she had battled for many years. She was also a Humboldtian. You can read about some aspects of her amazing life here.

And, while I was at the IFORS conference in Santiago, Chile, July 10-14, 2023, at which I gave a keynote, we heard from Springer Nature that we are getting a contract to edit the volume: "Dynamics of Disasters: From Natural Phenomena to Human Activity." My fellow Co-Editors on this project are: Professors Ilias S. Kotsireas, Panos M. Pardalos, Stefan Pickl, and Chrys Vogiatzis. It was a pleasure to work with them on the organization of this very timely conference.

Thanks to All Who Made Our 2021 Dynamics of Disasters Conference a Success!

The 5th International Conference on Dynamics of Disasters has now come to a close. It was Professor Panos M. Pardalos who had the vision to start this conference series. I have had the honor of co-organizing the last four of them. This year the conference was virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic and was co-organized by Professors Pardalos, Ilias S. Kotsireas, Chrys Vogiatzis, and me, with support provided by Professor Fuad Aleskerov and Sofia Papadaki. The conference website has a link to the full program and information on the outstanding plenary speakers: Professor Maria Besiou and Professor Oleg Prokopyev, and Dr. Stavros Siokos and Dr. George Karagiannis. It was very appropriate and illuminating to have plenary speakers from academia, industry, and government, who shed light on the latest research as well as best practices. 

The plenary talks were truly inspirational!

This was a single stream conference, which worked very well. There were excellent questions and a lot of discussions. Speakers and participants came from many countries, including: Austria, Germany, Italy, India, Nepal, Russia, the UK and the United States! It was very special to have four of my former PhD students present: Dr. Deniz Besik of the University of Richmond, Dr. Pritha Dutta of Pace University, Dr. Tina Wakolbinger of the Vienna University of Economics and Business, and the plenary speaker, Dr. Stavros Siokos! Dr. Besik presented on our latest food supply chain research with disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which is joint work with Dr. Dutta. Dr. Dutta, in turn, presented on our convalescent plasma research, a paper that was very recently published in Operations Research Forum. Also, my PhD student, Mojtaba Salarpour, presented  our paper published in the International Journal of Production Economics. In addition, I presented a paper on refugee migration networks that was co-authored with Professor Patrizia Daniele of the University of Catania and Professor Ladimer S. Nagurney of the University of Hartford. Our paper had been recently published in the Journal of Global Optimization. Professor Daniele also presented a paper on UAVs and 5G for disaster relief, work with Daniele Sciacca and Gabriella Colajanni.

As Professor Stephan Onggo of the UK (he is originally from Indonesia and is heading the Ops-Relief project) said: Disaster Management is complex and requires many different tools. And, indeed, the conference talks demonstrated the utility and applicability of optimization and simulation tools, AI and Machine Learning, game theory, network science, Data Envelope Analysis, and even the analysis of Twitter. There was definitely a "network" theme in many of the presentations!

Special thanks to colleagues in Nepal, India, and Russia, who joined us despite the challenges with their time zones and the conference talk scheduling. I am so grateful to each and every speaker and participant for the knowledge that was exchanges and also for the very supportive community that we have been building across the miles.

I am very pleased that many new research ideas were generated and new connections made virtually across the miles. It was wonderful to have 3 INFORMS Fellows take part in the conference, Professors Pardalos and Vicki Bier and me!

Below is a virtual group picture of the conferees.

And, UMass Amherst posted this nice article about our conference.

Professor Panos M. Pardalos closed out the conference with the following quote, which I leave you with, "Keep positive but test negative!"

Professor Pardalos, inspired by Dr. Siokos, who emphasized that trees are the only "technology" that removes carbon from the air, then showed us the book in the photo below. Dr. Siokos is the co-founder of Astarte Capital Partners, based in London, England, which invests heavily in forests around the globe.

And we will be co-editing a special issue of the journal Operations Research Forum on our conference theme. The call for papers can be downloaded here.

Busy Week with the EURO 2021 and the Dynamics of Disasters Conferences

My Supernetworks group has been hard at work preparing for conferences that we will be speaking at. This Sunday the EURO 2021 Conference begins. It is a hybrid conference, based in Athens, and goes from July 11-July 14. On July 16, the 5th International Conference on Dynamics of Disasters begins and will last through July 18. It was originally scheduled to be in person and also in Athens, but has turned virtual. I am co-organizing the latter conference with Professors Kotsireas and Pardalos and Vogiatzis with great support from Sophia Paradaki.

Interestingly, back in the summer of 2019, I spoke at EURO Dublin and we organized also a Dynamics of Disasters (DOD) Conference, which took place in Kalamata, Greece! I blogged about the great Dublin conference, where many photos can also be found.  Please also check out my post on the DOD conference in Kalamata, which was a big success and we even edited a refereed volume, which was published by Springer.

The 2021 EURO Conference has a very busy and interesting program. I was delighted to be invited by Ruth Kaufman to give a lightning talk in the OR and COVID session in the Making an Impact Stream. The Making an Impact Stream I spoke at (on a panel) in Dublin and enjoyed the experience and discussions immensely. My lightning talk is entitled, "OR and COVID-19: From Research to Policy." Also, our latest work on game theory and disasters will be presented (the talk has been recorded by my PhD student, Mojtaba Salarpour, since it was placed in an invited session but at 5:30AM EDT). The presentation is based on a paper of ours published in the International Journal of Production Economics (IJPE) in 2021. We thank Professor Tina Wakolbinger of the Vienna University of Economics and Business for inviting us to speak in this Humanitarian Operations session that she organized for EURO 2021.

One can definitely see that we have been heavily engaged in research on various supply chain network themes in the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Dynamics of Disasters Conference has an excellent line-up of plenary speakers: Professor Maria Besiou and Professor Oleg Prokopyev plus Dr. Stavros Siokos and Dr. George Karagiannis.

Our presentations at the DOD conference will include research done with Professors Deniz Besik and Pritha Dutta on food supply chains and disruptions in the pandemic; on convalescent plasma, based on a paper with Professor Pritha Dutta, recently published in Operations Research Forum, and on refugee migration networks - work done with Professors Patrizia Daniele and Ladimer S. Nagurney and based on a paper published in the Journal of Global Optimization. Mojtaba will also present our paper in IJPE presented at EURO 2021. I am looking forward to many interesting discussions and idea generation!

Looking forward to "seeing" many wonderful colleagues at these exciting conferences!

The Book: Dynamics of Disasters: Impact, Risk, Resilience, and Solutions is Published by Springer Nature!

On March 12, 2021, I received an email from Springer Nature, which is the publisher of the book: Dynamics of Disasters: Impact, Risk, Resilience, and Solutions, that I had co-edited with Ilias. S. Kotsireas, Panos M. Pardalos, and Arsenios Tsokas. The email was addressed to Frau Anna Nagurney and stated that the book had been published and was being shipped to my home. I hope that in future correspondence I would be addressed either as Professor or Dr. since my marital status should not be relevant, I would think. 

The next day, quite amazingly, a box with 3 copies of the new book was delivered to our door!

This book is a collection of 16 refereed papers, plus a preface, and is based on the latest Dynamics of Disasters conference that I co-organized with Professors Kotsireas and Pardalos, which took place in Kalamata, Greece in 2019, plus several invited contributions. More information on this international conference can be found here. It was a wonderful conference and the third that I had the pleasure of co-organizing with my outstanding colleagues.

The conference attracted participants and speakers from many different countries, including Canada, Greece, Italy, Germany, Russia, Japan, Nepal, and the US and was a fabulous forum for the exchange of ideas and scientific discussions at a beautiful venue. It is remarkable how our world has changed since due to the COVID-19 pandemic!

The edited volume contains results on many timely topics and the full list of chapter titles and additional information can be found on the publisher's website for the book. Some of the topics in the volume include: drones for disaster assessment, impact of labor disruptions to food supply chains in the COVID-19 pandemic, problems of human migration, infrastructure network resilience, cyber crises, the prevention of geological disasters, the use of blockchain technology, and many others!

The preface describing each of the papers in the volume and the Table of Contents, can be directly accessed here.

UMass Amherst produced this nice news article on our new book.

We are also in the planning stages for the 5th Dynamics of Disasters Conference, which is to take place in Athens, Greece, in mid July in 2021. More information on the conference can be found on the conference website.

The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly added additional complexity to all phases of disaster management and, with disasters increasing in frequency as well as in negative impact, holding such a conference in 2021 is very much needed. Hoping that, with vaccinations and mitigation procedures, it can take place face to face.

The Dynamics of Disasters Conference in Greece and Multidisciplinary Perspectives

After the fabulous EURO Conference in Dublin, Ireland, which I wrote about in my previous blogpost, I journeyed to Kalamata, Greece with a stopover in London and then Vienna.

Along with my outstanding colleagues, Professors Panos M. Pardalos of the University of Florida and Ilias S. Kotsireas of Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada, I had organized another Dynamics of Disasters conference in Kalamata, Greece, July 1-5, 2019.  I'd like to also take this opportunity to congratulate Professor Pardalos on his receipt of the Humboldt Research Award. He was recently recognized in a ceremony with other Humboldt recipients in Berlin by Angela Merkel and the President of Germany!

The importance of multidisciplinary perspectives in all phases of disaster management from preparedness and mitigation to response was vividly illustrated at this conference by speakers from many different countries.

Kalamata is located on the Mediterranean sea and it is not an easy location to get to, but the beauty of the venue, as well as the fascinating scientific exchanges and discussions on a theme of great importance, made the travel worthwhile for everyone. The conference took place at the Elite Resort hotel in Kalamata. Below are some photos taken at the conference site and the immediately surrounding area. The local organizer was Sofia Papadaki, to whom thanks are extended!

The two previous such conferences that I also co-organized with Pardalos and Kotsireas resulted in two edited volumes published by Springer. Many of the chapters are enjoying multiple downloads and I have used several in the course: Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare that I teach at the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst.

The delegates at this Dynamics of Disasters conference came from the USA, Canada, Greece, Italy, Poland, Germany, Korea, Japan, Russia, and Nepal, resulting in a very international experience and also an intense one since there is only a single track of talks. Below is a group photo taken at the conference venue of the delegates.

Professor Stephan Pickl of Germany, who is Chair of Operations Research at the Universität der Bundeswehr München, delivered an excellent lecture on a Smart Optimization Framework SARA, emphasizing the hyperconnectivity of critical infrastructure networks and stochastic elements. He is a renowned disaster management expert and involved in policy making as well in Germany.

Dr. Matsuno of Japan presented an excellent talk on the use of gaming on smart phones to inform and educate about disasters in Tokyo, including floods. There was also an excellent presentation on a course on emergency management developed by Dr. Assael, a chemical engineer from Greece, with input from students, and presentations on elegant network models for evacuation by Dr. Urmila Pyakurel of Nepal and colleagues and by her student Hari Nandan Nath. The use of DEA in regions for Russia for coping with disasters was presented by Sergiy Demin on work done with Dr. Fouad Aleskerov, and a description of the Global Resilience Institute at Northeastern University in Massachusetts was described by Dr. Steven Flynn. A talk on disaster management at mass gatherings with a focus on the Athens Marathon was delivered by Dr. Angeliki Bistariki.

Professor Theodore Trafalis of the University of Oklahoma delivered an outstanding tutorial on machine learning for imbalanced data with applications to severe weather predication, including tornadoes.

It was a pleasure to listen to the very innovative and important research being conducted by colleagues in Italy, including that of Dr. Ugo Fiore and Salvatore Scognamiglio and colleagues, on the prevention of geological disasters, with even the use of a large-scale dataset on China.

The audience was very engaged and new friendships made and networks established.

It was fabulous to meet Dr. Steven Flynn, the founding director of the Global Resilience Institute at Northeastern University in Massachusetts.

Another wonderful, unexpected delight was to hear Dr. Angeliki Bistariki speak. She is a nurse and a PhD and, in her presentation on mass gatherings and the Athens Marathon, she had a video from our local news station in western Massachusetts - WWLP, moderated by Barry Krieger on how MEMA prepares for the Boston Marathon!

I mentioned in our discussions that I had hosted a MEMA official in my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare class last semester, Ms. Sara Zalieckas, who was responsible for safety at the 2019 Boston Marathon. My blogpost on her brilliant guest lecture can be viewed here.

It was also terrific to hear the talk by Dr. Georgios Tsaples and colleagues on system dynamics modeling of the consequences of extreme weather conditions on traffic in the city of Thessaloniki, Greece. There were even insights as to modal choice and use (or not) of public transportation following.

Stamatis Papangelou reported on his research on land property data logging on a blockchain ledger, which is very innovative and enables the assessment of land property for the risk of natural disasters.

Below are photos taken with Professor Pardalos and his son, Akis (whom we have had the pleasure of seeing at numerous conferences around the globe), and with Professor Ilias Kotsireas and the "other" Professor Nagurney - my husband, along with conference assistants.

The structure of the conference included time for coffee breaks, nice meals, some touring, and a banquet with a view of the Mediterranean Sea.

This was our third time in Kalamata, Greece, and we were quite impressed by how much the surrounding area seems to have improved economically with new shops, restaurants, and many happy families strolling in the evening when the ocean breezes from the Mediterranean cooled off the area. Nice to even see bicycle lanes downtown.

I would be remiss not to mention the quality of the food in Kalamata - the fruits and vegetables are some of the most delicious ones I have ever eaten!

I have made my talk on game theory and disaster relief, co-authored with my doctoral student Mojtaba Salarpour and Professor Patrizia Daniele of the University of Catania, available for download to further discussions.

And, today, we took another group photo of those who were still able to be with us.

Special thanks to Professors Pardalos and Kotsireas as well as to Sofia Papadaki, and to all the delegates to our Dynamics of Disasters conference, for making it such a success. Best of luck with your continuing research!