As the 2023-2024 academic year was growing to a close, there were many celebratory events including my department's award ceremony that I had blogged about.
And, at the final All School Meeting of the Isenberg School on May 9, 2024, there were faculty and PhD students recognized for research and teaching as well as staff for their accomplishments.
I was thrilled to hear that my Isenberg School PhD student, Dana Hassani, who has completed almost two and a half years in our doctoral program in Operations Management, was the sole recipient of the 2024 Isenberg School Outstanding Doctoral Research Award! I had nominated Dana for this award.
Below is a collage of photos taken after the announcement and prior to the Senior Barbecue that followed.
Dana has already had two journal articles published, one in the European Journal of Operational Research, and the other one in the Journal of Global Optimization.
Both of these papers, Dana co-authored with me and with colleagues at the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) in Ukraine, Professor Oleg Nivievskyi and Dr. Pavlo Martyshev. Preprints of these and other papers of ours can be found on the Supernetwork Center website:
https://supernet.isenberg.umass.edu/dart.html These papers are reflective of a wonderful collaboration began through the UMass Amherst - KSE partnership, which was established after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia on February 24, 2022. Pavlo was one of 15 Virtual Scholars in our first round and was placed with me as a Faculty Host.
In addition, we, recently, heard that another joint paper of ours, "Quantification of International Trade Network Performance Under Disruptions to Supply, Transportation, and Demand Capacity, and Exchange Rates in Disasters," has been accepted for publication 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.
The achievement of Dana's receipt of this award is quite impressive since there are 7 departments in the Isenberg School of Management.
The research on international agricultural trade network equilibrium problems continues, with various policy interventions, analysis of disruptions due to the war, as well as impacts on food security.
Our KSE colleagues inspire us as do all Ukrainians fighting for their freedom and that of democracies globally.
