Isenberg School of Management PhD Students and Faculty Shine at NEDSI Conference

Yesterday was a glorious day and the last day of the Northeast Decision Sciences Institute conference, which took place March 22-25, 2017, in Springfield, Massachusetts. The full conference program can be downloaded here.

Given the proximity of Springfield to Amherst, Massachusetts and also the opportunity to network and to present papers, this was a conference that my doctoral students in Management Science and I were very much looking forward to.  The conference was wonderful and below I share just a few of the highlights and also some pleasant surprises.

My doctoral student in Management Science, Shivani Shukla, presented our paper on freight service provision security investments for high value cargo on Thursday.

Yesterday, Deniz Besik, presented, for the first time at a conference, our paper, which was recently accepted for publication in the Journal of Global Optimization.

Then it was time for Pritha Dutta to present on our work on game theory and blood donations.

Our PhD students were terrific at answering questions from the audience and also enjoyed seeing other colleagues from the College of Engineering at UMass Amherst and even UMass Boston! Their full presentations can be downloaded here.

Also, the other Professor Nagurney - Dr. Ladimer S. Nagurney, enjoyed seeing his colleague from the Barney School at the University of Hartford.

Everyone appreciated very much the attention to detail with numerous delicious receptions throughout the day.

Last evening, before the sumptious gala banquet, we had the pleasure of hearing my colleague, Nirenberg Chaired Professor Charles "Chuck" Manz, deliver a keynote talk on Twisted Leadership. His presentation was fascinating as he took us on a journey discussing self-leadership, super leadership, shared leadership, and socially responsible leadership and how all of these should be intertwined like a rope. We had front row seats for his talk.

He was introduced by the conference organizer, Dr. Minoo Tehrani.

His talk was interspersed with many interesting cases from practice as well as words of wisdom from leaders over the centuries and also jokes.

Then it was time for the banquet!

The food was delicious and we thank the organizer and the venue - the Marriott in Springfield - for the soup, salad, roasted veggies, potatoes, beef, chicken, and salmon and incredible desserts!

Towards the end of the banquet, the awards were announced and what a truly special surprise awaited us.

The PhD presentation awards were swept by Isenberg School of Management PhD students in Management Science! A big congratulations to Pritha Dutta, who received the first place award for presenting on our work on blood donations, and to Yueran Zhuo, whose advisor is my colleague, Professor Senay Solak, and who spoke on management of cybersecurity investments, and received the second place award.

Pritha was presented with the first place award by Dr. Joy Field of Boston College and Dr. Minoo Tehrani.

Many thanks to all those involved for such special memories and congratulations to our wonderful Isenberg School PhD students in Management Science! Being able to present in an engaging and informative way on challenging, technical problems with enthusiasm and clarity is quite an accomplishment!