Congratulations and Kudos to the Supernetwork Team at the Isenberg School of Management for a Great 2018 Year!

Every year, at this time, as the Center Director of the Virtual Center for Supernetworks, I prepare a Congratulations and Kudos piece on the Supernetwork Team. 2018 was another exceptional year for the Supernetwork Team, one in which we continued to make a global impact through fundamental network research with a wide range of applications and activities! It is an honor to highlight some of the accomplishments and achievements of the Center Associates of the Virtual Center for Supernetwork in the past year. The book, Dynamics of Disasters: Algorithmic Approaches and Applications, which I co-edited with Professor Ilias S. Kotsireas of Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada and Professor Panos M. Pardalos of the University of Florida, was published by Springer. The collection of refereed chapters includes several papers presented at the Dynamics of Disaster conference in the summer of 2017 in Kalamata, Greece, by Center Associates, including: Advances in Disaster Communications: Broadband Systems for First Responders by Dr. Ladimer S. Nagurney of the University of Hartford, and A Variational Equilibrium Network Framework for Humanitarian Organizations in Disaster Relief: Effective Product Delivery Under Competition for Financial Funds, which I co-authored with  Dr. Patrizia Daniele of the University of Catania in Italy, Emilio Alvarez Flores of Cisco, and Professor Daniele's former doctoral student, Valeria Caruso. Also, while at the conference, a wonderful collaboration was initiated with Professor Tina Wakolbinger of the Vienna University of Economics and Business and her doctoral student Timo Gossler, which resulted in the paper,  How to Increase the Impact of Disaster Relief: A Study of Transportation Rates, Framework Agreements and Product Distribution, published open access in the European Journal of Operational Research, and co-authored with Professor Patrizia Daniele and me. A big congratulations to Professor Tina Wakolbinger, who was selected as one of two keynote speakers for the 50th Anniversary Celebration  of the PhD Program of the Isenberg School of Management, which will take place on April 5, 2019. The other keynote speaker is Dr. Dennis Hanno, the President of Wheaton College in Massachusetts. I have organized a panel of our Management Science PhD alums, which will include Center Associate Professor Patrick Qiang of Penn State University Great Valley and Center Associate Dr. Padma Ramanujam of SAS! Also, a delightful collaboration of four females, resulted in the paper, Cybersecurity Investments with Nonlinear Budget Constraints and Conservation Laws: Variational Equilibrium, Marginal Expected Utilities, and Lagrange Multipliers, Gabriella Colajanni (Professor Daniele's doctoral student), Patrizia Daniele, Professor Sofia Giuffre, and me, published in the International Transactions in Operational Research in 2018! Special thanks to Professor Patrizia Daniele for co-organizing an incredible conference: Variational Inequalities, Nash Equilibrium Problems and Applications, March 8-9, 2018, in Reggio Calabria, Italy, which took place in a castle! I had a marvelous time being a keynote speaker and taking part in this exceptional scientific conference. Center Associates had numerous speaking engagements at conferences globally as well as many invited seminar talks. Professors Daniele, Wakolbinger, and Jose Cruz presented at the 29th European Conference On Operational Research, EURO2018, Valencia, Spain, July 8-11, 2018 and I had the pleasure, as did Doctoral Student Center Associate Pritha Dutta, to  present at the CORS Conference in Halifax, Canada! And, speaking of doctoral students, congratulations also to Deniz Besik, on the acceptance of her paper, Tariffs and Quotas in World Trade: A Unified Variational Inequality Framework, in the European Journal of Operational Research, which was co-authored with Professor June Dong of SUNY Oswego and me. This work began last summer when I was back at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University as a Summer Fellow and it was tremendous to have Professors June Dong, Amir M. Masoumi of Manhattan College, and Michelle Li  visit, as well as my doctoral students Pritha Dutta and Deniz Besik. A big congratulations also to Deniz, who served as last year's President of the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter and, this past November, the chapter was recognized with its 12th consecutive award from INFORMS at the Annual Meeting in Phoenix for its activities. Very active officers include Doctoral Student Center Associates Pritha Dutta and Mojtaba Salarpour. Congratulations also to Pritha on the acceptance of two papers: Supply Chain Network Competition Among Blood Service Organizations: A Generalized Nash Equilibrium Framework, in press in the Annals of Operations Research, and Competition for Blood Donations, in press in Omega. Pritha successfully defended her doctoral dissertation proposal this past semester and also took part in the INFORMS Future Academicians Doctoral Colloquium just prior to the INFORMS Conference in Phoenix in November. Deniz also had a co-authored paper published in Chaos, which was an Editor's Pick. Kudos to Center Associate Dr. Michelle Li on her move to Babson College as an Assistant Professor. Babson is considered the top entrepreneurial college in the world! Also, congratulations to her on the publication of the paper, The Sustainable Supply Chain Network Competition with Environmental Tax Policies, co-authored with Center Associates Professor Min Yu of the University of Portland and Jose Cruz of the University of Connecticut! In addition, congrats on the publication of our co-authored paper, Consumer Learning of Product Quality with Time Delay: Insights from Spatial Price Equilibrium Models with Differentiated Products, also with Dr. Yu, in Omega. Kudos to Center Associate Dr. Sara Saberi of the Foisie School of Business at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Massachusetts, who is lead author of the paper, A Competitive Multiperiod Supply Chain Network Model with Freight Carriers and Green Technology Investment Option, with Center Associate Dr. Jose M. Cruz of the University of Connecticut, her colleague, Dr. Joe Sarkis, and me, which was published in the European Journal of Operational Research. Congratulations also to Dr. Saberi on the publication of her paper, Sustainable, Multiperiod Supply Chain Network Model with Freight Carrier Through Reduction in Pollution Stock in Transportation Research E! Sara is now conducting research with support from several grants and is an elected Officer of WORMS (Women in Operations Research and the Management Sciences). Congratulations to Center Associate Dr. Shivani Shukla, of the University of San Francisco, who, along with Dr. Sara Saberi and Professor Ladimer S. Nagurney, and me, had the paper, A Game Theory Model for Freight Service Provision Security Investments for High-Value Cargo, published in the Economics of Transportation. The INFORMS Phoenix conference, November 4-7, 2018 served as a terrific venue for many Center Associates to reconvene, with participants and speakers including Center Associates: Professor Patrick Qiang of Pennsylvania State University Great Valley,  Professor Amir H. Masoumi of Manhattan College, Professor Min Yu of the University of Portland, Professor Dmytro Matsypura of the University of Sydney in Australia, Professor Jose M. Cruz of the University of Connecticut, Professor Dong Li of Babson, Professor Sara Saberi, and Professor Shivani Shukla as well as Deniz Besik and Pritha Dutta. At the conference I was deeply honored in being selected and delivering the Omega Rho Distinguished Lecture: Networks to Save the World: OR in Action. Special thanks also to Lancaster University in England, where I not only gave a course last March, but also was the plenary speaker in September for the 60th anniversary conference: OR60, and at the Early Career Researcher Workshop. The OR Society kindly made a videotape of my plenary talk and it is now posted on youtube. Below are links to examples of some of our recent publications:   Tariffs and Quotas in World Trade: A Unified Variational Inequality Framework Anna Nagurney, Deniz Besik, and June Dong, in press in the European Journal of Operational Research. A Game Theory Model for Freight Service Provision Security Investments for High-Value Cargo Anna Nagurney, Shivani Shukla, Ladimer S. Nagurney, and Sara Saberi, Economics of Transportation 16: (2018), pp 21-28. Consumer Learning of Product Quality with Time Delay: Insights from Spatial Price Equilibrium Models with Differentiated Products Dong "Michelle" Li, Anna Nagurney, and Min Yu, Omega 18: (2018), pp 150-168.

Supply Chain Network Competition Among Blood Service Organizations: A Generalized Nash Equilibrium Framework Anna Nagurney and Pritha Dutta, to appear in the Annals of Operations Research. Competition for Blood Donations Anna Nagurney and Pritha Dutta, in press in Omega.  Dynamics of Quality as a Strategic Variable in Complex Food Supply Chain Network Competition: The Case of Fresh Produce Anna Nagurney, Deniz Besik, and Min Yu, Chaos 28: (2018), 043124.

Thanks for the support! We wish everyone a Fabulous New 2019 Year!

The UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter Celebration at the Isenberg School

For students and faculty alike, the month of December is a very busy time with final exams, projects and papers due, and for the faculty - grading!

It is also a month for celebrations and recently we held our end of the semester UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter party, which has become a wonderful tradition.

The food was exceptional with cuisines (some of it even homemade) from around the world - from Indian and Chinese food to Ukrainian food and, of course, Italian food in the form of pizza and cookies!

This was a very special semester (and year) in which the Student Chapter received its 12th consecutive award from INFORMS at the annual meeting in Phoenix in November - the Cum Laude Award; we hosted several great speakers, and, most importantly, we have continued to build and nurture a warm and supportive community for Operations Research and Analytics and Management Science at UMass Amherst!

As several faculty and students remarked to me afterwards (even several days post the party) - the event was so relaxing and we had such a great time!

It is quite the logistical exercise to have the food purchased and picked up so that the warm food stays warm and the same for the cold - although given the temperature that day the latter was much easier!

It is also a great event during which to catch up with faculty and students from across campus - from Engineering and Computer Science, in addition to the Isenberg School folks.

Many thanks to Professors Arora, Balasubramanian, Gonzales, Gopalappa, Ladimer S. Nagurney, and Shirley Shmerling for coming to the party and also to Associate Dean Erin Baker! Your presence means a tremendous amount to the students.

The attendees were like the United Nations: born in Canada, China, Greece, India, Iran, Mexico, Turkey, Nigeria, and even the USA!

A big thanks also to the Chapter Officers for making this event a big success. I look forward as the Chapter's Faculty Advisor to a great Spring 2019 semester with several speakers already set. More photos can be found here.

With warm wishes for a great holiday season and a Very Happy New 2019 Year!