Last Friday, we had a delightful celebration at the Isenberg School of Management of two awards received recently at the INFORMS Annual Meeting in Atlanta.
Since I have been a Visiting Professor in Sweden, not only at KTH in Stockholm, but also over a multiyear period at the University of Gothenburg's School of Business, Economics and Law, I learned there the importance of celebrations! For example, at the latter, we would regularly meet, as a group, to enjoy a "fika" with delicious pastries, cakes, and coffee (and great conversations) to celebrate journal publications and other achievements.
Hence, the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter sent out invitations - and produced the nice poster below for the event last Friday.
This year's President, Samira Samadi (who is also my PhD student), ordered a fruit platter and various pastries plus coffee and the students surprised me with a Congratulations chocolate cake.
Earlier, I had blogged about my receipt of the INFORMS President's Award, an honor I am so deeply grateful for: https://annanagurney.blogspot.com/2025/10/deeply-honored-to-receive-informs.html and Samira wrote this lovely post on the Chapter Award received and my President's Award on the Chapter website: https://websites.umass.edu/umassinf/2025/11/02/two-awards-one-incredible-2025-informs-annual-meeting-experience/
It was wonderful to celebrate the Chapter's receipt of the Cum Laude Award from INFORMS plus my President's Award and below are a few photos from the event. Many thanks to all who support us.
Josh Gladstone is our chapter expert at cutting up cakes! Last year's Chapter President, Ismael Pour, is overseeing his progress in the photo above with Yongdong Chen providing support.
Posts
