Honored to be a Highly Ranked Scholar, Thanks ScholarGPS

I was delighted to be notified during the holiday season  in an emailed message from ScholarGPS that: Your prolific publication record, the high impact of your work, and the outstanding quality of your scholarly contributions have placed you in the top 0.05% of all scholars worldwide according to the most recent 2025 ScholarGPS.

The notification provided additional information that can also be found on the ScholarGPS website: https://scholargps.com/

ScholarGPS provided me with both my Lifetime ranking - #7 in Supply Chains, #14 in Network Model, and #83 in Business and Management (and also Highly Ranked Scholar in All Fields of Scholarly Endeavor).  I was thrilled to hear that I am  #4 in Game Theory over the past 5 years, a methodological framework that I utilize in much of my supply chain modeling work.

I enjoy doing research tremendously (and publishing both journal articles as well as books plus also OpEds, etc.) and aim to make my research, with great students and collaborators,  relevant to pressing global issues.

Nice to have the following certificates from ScholarGPS:

Our Paper on Integrated Crop and Cargo War Risk Insurance with Application to Ukraine is Published!

The front page of today's Sunday New York Times has an article on Odesa, Ukraine, which is painful to read. This very important port city for Ukraine for trade has been subject to relentless bombing for the past few weeks with even a silo of sunflower oil attacked and the oil spilling into the Black Sea. Residents of Odesa have had to suffer from the bombing, and shortages of water and electric power.

We are all connected. A wonderful colleague at the Odesa Law Academy, Borys Kormych, has been a Virtual Scholar through our global partnership between UMass Amherst and the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) in two cohorts. In the most recent one, my Isenberg School of Management PhD student, Ismael Pour, and I have had the honor and pleasure of collaborating with him. We always worry how our colleagues, collaborators, and friends are doing in the illegal, horrific war perpetrated on Ukraine and Ukrainians.

An outcome of our collaboration  is the paper, "Integrated crop and cargo war risk insurance: application to Ukraine," that was published in the January 2026 issue of the International Transactions in Operational Research (ITOR): https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/itor.70038?af=R A reprint of the paper can be downloaded here: https://supernet.isenberg.umass.edu/articles/IntegratedWarInsurance.pdf

Today the President of Ukraine Zelenskyy will be meeting with President Trump in Mar-a-Lago.  

Peace with security must return to Ukraine. 

After almost 4 years of the full-scale invasion by Russia, with billions of dollars of destruction and so much suffering and loss of lives, the war needs to end with the aggressor also paying for all the consequences. 

Our Paper with Colleagues in Italy on Flexible Production Networks and Environmental Regulations is Published!

It is now the holiday season so one needs to find moments of joy, despite so many horrific events and challenges. I am very grateful to my wonderful collaborators.

The same day as the mass casualty event at my alma mater, Brown University, a paper that I co-authored with colleagues at the University of Catania in Italy: Dr. Gabriella Colajanni, Professor Patrizia Daniele, and Dr. Daniele Sciacca, was published in the European Journal of Operational Research and it is open access: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377221725009786

Also, at about the same time, we received a huge package of chocolates from one of these co-authors, which brought light in this time of darkness.

We will be enjoying the chocolates for many weeks and will also be sharing them. 

Thank you for the friendships across the miles and for the outstanding community of Operations Researchers.

Let peace and freedom and righteousness prevail as we come to the end of the 2025 year.

A Fabulous UMass Amherst INFORMS Party with Even Exchange Students from the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) in Ukraine

Yesterday, we had our UMass Amherst INFORMS party and, despite the very cold weather and that it is now the final exam period, it was fabulous!

As is our tradition, we brought hot Ukrainian food, including two types of varenyky (pierogies) and kovbasa (kielbasy),  plus many desserts. Thanks to the faculty that made it: Professor Senay Solak, the Chair of my department,  Professor Iqbal Ali, the former Cbair of my department, and Professor Hari Balasubramanian of the Riccio College of Engineering. Thanks to all the Chapter Officers who could attend: Josh Gladstone, Dana Hassani, Semih Boz, and Sindhoora Prakash. A special shoutout to the Chapter President Samira Samadi for her excellent work on the logistics for this lovely event marking the 2025 end of the semester and for bringing delicious Middle Eastern pastries. Catering was provided by award-winning UMass Dining.

Below is a collage of photos.

It was extra special to have 4 exchange students: Vaktoriia Baliuk, Oleksandra Horusieva, Karyna Lutsenko, and  Nataliia Pavelko from the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE), who have been studying at UMass Amherst, join us, as well as, Professor Nataliia Bychkova from Amherst College, who brought confections from Ukraine to share. The students, after completing their final exams, will be returning to Ukraine. We hope to welcome a new cohort for Spring 2026. This exchange program was made possible through a global partnership established between UMass Amherst and KSE shortly after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia on February 24, 2022.

I am so grateful for this wonderful community and am honored to have served as the Faculty Advisor to the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter since its inception in 2004.

Wishing everyone warmth, peace, pleasant adventures, and a lovely Holiday Season. Thank you for the support.

The Fall 2025 Supernetwork Center Newsletter is Now Online!

In the Fall 2026, we will be marking the 25th Anniversary of the Virtual Center for Supernetworks, an incredible milestone, which we hope to celebrate in an appropriate fashion. Since Fall 2001, a historic time, I might add, I have had the honor and pleasure of serving as the Director of  the Virtual Center for Supernetworks, which I founded.

In order to keep our supporters and the public informed as to the Center's activities, we publish a newsletter, now in Fall and Spring editions.

I am delighted that the Fall 2025 edition of The Supernetwork Sentinel, the newsletter of the Virtual Center for Supernetworks at the Isenberg School of Management, has now been published.

The Fall 2025 newsletter, along with all previous ones, going back to Fall 2003, can be accessed on the following link: https://supernet.isenberg.umass.edu/newsletters/sentinel.html

It has been a terrific couple of months, with outstanding conferences, significant recognition, as well as journal article acceptances and publications.

Wishing everyone a peaceful Holiday Season and a Great New 2026 Year!