Congratulations to Dana Hassani on Receipt of the 2025 Outstanding Doctoral Student Researcher Award at the Isenberg School!

On May 9, the Isenberg School of Management held its All School Meeting to wrap up the academic year. At the meeting, various awards were given out to faculty, staff, and doctoral students.

My Isenberg PhD student in Operations Management Dana Hassani, who was announced as the recipient of the 2025 Outstanding Doctoral Student Researcher Award, was, at that time, was en route to the POM Society Conference in Atlanta, so could not attend. I had blogged about this conference in previous posts.

So, this past Thursday, after the Isenberg PhD robing ceremony, the Director of our PhD Program, Dr. George Milne, presented Dana with the award plaque in our Business Innovation Hub.

Dana arrived at UMass Amherst in January 2022, after a delay in obtaining his visa. He has published 3 journal articles, and one book chapter, which is quite remarkable. And he has also been teaching this past academic year a required course, "Business Data Analysis," for our business undergraduates each semester. Dana is the lead author of the paper, "A Multiperiod, Multicommodity, Capacitated International Agricultural Trade Network Equilibrium Model with Applications to Ukraine in Wartime," co-authored with me, and Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) colleagues: Oleg Nivievskyi and Pavlo Martyshev, which appears in in the INFORMS journal Transportation Science,  vol. 59, no. 1, January-February 2025, pp. 143–164. He is also the co-author (second author) with the same co-authors as above of the paper, "Multicommodity International Agricultural Trade Network Equilibrium: Competition for Limited Production and Transportation Capacity Under Disaster Scenarios with Implications for Food Security," published in the European Journal of Operational Research, vol. 314, no. 1, 2024,  pp. 1127-1142. He is also a co-author, with the same authors as above of the paper, "Exchange Rates and Multicommodity International Trade: Insights from Spatial Price Equilibrium Modeling with Policy Instruments via Variational Inequalities," published in the Journal of Global Optimization, vol.  87, 2023, pp. 1-30.

Dana's book chapter, co-authored with the same team as his journal articles, "Quantification of International Trade Network Performance Under Disruptions to Supply, Transportation, and Demand Capacity, and Exchange Rates in Disasters," was published 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, 2024, pp. 151-179.

It is important to emphasize that there are 9 tracks in the Isenberg PhD Program so receiving this award is quite the achievement. And, Dana also got this award last year. He successfully defended his dissertation proposal a few months ago. I look forward to his successful PhD defense in the coming academic year. He has done excellent research focusing on agricultural supply chains and international trade under disruptions, including in Ukraine during wartime. It has been an honor to work with him and with colleagues at the Kyiv School of Economics. 

We Celebrated the Outstanding Exchange Students from the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE)

This is the second full academic year that exchange students from the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) in Ukraine have been studying at UMass Amherst. The exchange program, during wartime Ukraine, was made possible because of a partnership established between KSE and UMass Amherst, under the leadership of the Vice Chancellor for Global Affairs Dr. Kalpen Trivedi.

Two of the KSE exchange students have been with us for two academic years and are now returning back to Ukraine. Two are staying on for another year and we expect additional ones to arrive in the Fall.

I invited the students for a special dinner in order to celebrate their accomplishments. The dinner was at The Inn at Boltwood in downtown Amherst.  The warm conversations covered much territory - the students' classes and great professors, friends made from Massachusetts and from around the globe, the award-winning UMassAmherst food, college sports (notably, UMass hockey), life in beautiful Amherst, and the differences between learning in the US and in Ukraine. Traveling thousands of miles from their homes and their families, the students: Asta Motrenko, Marharyta Nechytailo, Oleksandra Horusieva, and Karyna Lutsenko have achieved so much and have left a big imprint on all those who have had the pleasure of interacting with them. Thanks to Lorraine Martinelle of Marcomm at the Isenberg School for the lovely, informative article on the students: https://www.isenberg.umass.edu/news/three-years-later-isenberg-reflects-umass-amherst-partnership-ukrainian-institution

They students have spoken on university panels (thanks to UMass Amherst Student Chapter of INFORMS), been on Talk the Talk radio show, made the Dean's List each semester, took part (Marharyta as an analyst) in the amazing and very impactful Isenberg Undergraduate Consulting Group (IUCG) and even placed second on a team in a national Capital One competition. Songs have been created, produced, and performed in Amherst (Asta). Since two students are returning to Kyiv, with Ukraine still enduring war, now in its 4th year,  this made the evening also bittersweet. 

I am sure that the KSE exchange students will play an important role, through their education, experiences and friendships made, in the recovery and rebuilding of Ukraine. A big thanks to their professors, including those at the Isenberg School of Management, UMass Amherst, who have provided such outstanding courses and have mentored them. And, thanks to the top administrators: Provost Fouad Abd-El-Khalick, Vice Provost for Global Affairs Kalpen Trivedi, and Isenberg Dean Anne P. Massey for the support in the global partnership between UMass Amherst and KSE. 

Presentations of Our POMS Talks in Atlanta Have Been Posted: From Agricultural Trade to War Risk Insurance

Last week,  I was busy with events and the last week of the academic year, but my Isenberg School PhD students traveled to Atlanta to present our joint work at the POM (Production and Operations Management) Society 35th Conference. They had an outstanding time and also, thanks to Isenberg PhD alumna, Dr. Deniz Besik of the University of Richmond, enjoyed a delicious lunch at a Turkish restaurant. My former PhD student, now at the University of Portland, as a tenured Associate Professor, Dr. Min Yu, also joined them. Below is a collage of photos of my PhD students: Dana Hassani, Ismael Pour, and Samira Samadi, presenting plus a lunch photo.

Dr. Deniz Besik also presented on our work on food banks. Below is a graphic of the first slide of our four presentations.

The slide decks of the full presentations, which, in the case of my PhD students, were all based on recently published papers, can be found on the Supernetwork Center website:  https://supernet.isenberg.umass.edu/visuals.html Dana's presentation was based on a paper published in the INFORMS journal Transportation Science. Ismael's paper appeared recently in International Transactions in Operational Research, and both his and Dana's paper was co-authored with colleagues in Ukraine. Samira's paper, which was co-authored also with Ismael, appeared in the Journal of Nonlinear and Variational Analysis.

I am very lucky to have excellent PhD students (present and former).

My 3 PhD Students Will Present Our Recently Published Papers at the POMS Conference in Atlanta

I am a very lucky and proud Academic Mom. My 3 Isenberg School of Management, UMass Amherst PhD students will present our recently published papers at the POMS Conference in Atlanta, which overlaps with Mother's Day https://pomsmeetings.org/conf-2025/

Dana Hassani will present the paper, "A Multiperiod, Multicommodity, Capacitated International Agricultural Trade Network Equilibrium Model with Applications to Ukraine in Wartime," which was co-authored with colleagues at the Kyiv School of Economics: Oleg Nivievskyi and Pavel Martyshev, and published in the INFORMS journal Transportation Science: https://lnkd.in/eUC3PA3J.  Ismael will present the paper, "Integrated Crop and Cargo War Risk Insurance: Application to Ukraine," which was co-authored with Borys Kormych of the National University "Odessa Law Academy" and published just this morning in the IFORS journal International Transactions in Operational Research: https://lnkd.in/e-3MxaDY. Samira will present the paper, "A Variational Inequality Trade Network Model in Prices and Quantities Under Commodity Losses," that we co-authored with Ismael, and that was published open access in the Journal of Nonlinear and Variational Analysis: https://lnkd.in/eSuiqC_C. Support for co-authors in Ukraine was made possible through the outstanding partnership between the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the Kyiv School of Economics, thanks to the leadership of Vice Chancellor of Global Affairs Kalpen Trivedi and Isenberg School of Management, UMass Amherst Dean Anne P. Massey. 

Our presentations are ready!

Happy Mother's Day and Happy Conferencing! 

The UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter Celebrated the End of the Semester with a Great Party and Congratulations Cake

Yesterday, during the next to the final week of classes in the 2024-2025 academic year at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, we had our UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter party. This is a tradition of this wonderful student chapter that brings both students and faculty together who work in the areas of Operations Research and the Management Sciences.

It has been a very busy week, with many additional events, that I even blogged about, including the 2025 OIM Awards Celebration just the evening before. And, yesterday morning, for the first time ever, the OIM Department Chair Professor Senay Solak organized a retreat for the department.

I left the retreat early, since, as is also the tradition, my husband and I always bring warm varenyky/pierogies, kielbasa, and desserts.

Some faculty mistakenly thought the party was at 4PM, although the poster circulated stated that the start time was 4:30PM. We appreciate the enthusiasm.

There was a kerfuffle - with all the events happening now at UMass Amherst, because of the end of the academic year, the order for food that the Chapter President Ismael Pour (one of my PhD students) put in got cancelled in the last minute. He scrambled then to get food orders from Atkins and from the famous Antonio's Pizza in downtown Amherst.

The food spread was fantastic and took up two large tables in Room N135 in the Business Innovation Hub at the Isenberg School of Management. Besides the Ukrainian food and the pizza, there were veggie and fruit trays, cold cuts and cheeses, and different types of sandwiches.

Josh Gladstone did a great job slicing the Congratulations cake. 

We brought both potato cheese varenyky and cabbage varenyky and the cake with Congratulations on it we bought at Whole Foods, along with a wide assortment of cookies. There were also various desserts from Atkins and even a spread of baklava pastries from Stop and Shop. It was appropriate to celebrate with a Congratulations cake since this chapter, in October, received the Magna Cum Laude Award from INFORMS at the Seattle Annual Meeting. Also, several of our PhD student members: Semih Boz, Dana Hassani (last year's Chapter President), Ismael Pour, and Samira Samadi have had journal articles published this past year and others are in press!

We have hosted a variety of events and speakers this past academic year. We were delighted that Lorraine Martinelle, of the Isenberg Marcomm Department, wrote an excellent article on our events associated with a panel with the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) exchange students and the visit and talk of the KSE President Tymofiy Mylovanov from Ukraine:  https://www.isenberg.umass.edu/news/three-years-later-isenberg-reflects-umass-amherst-partnership-ukrainian-institution Two of the exchange students, Marharyta Nechytailo and Karyna Lutsenko, joined our party. Also, it was wonderful to see Dr. Natalia Bychkova from Ukraine, who has been teaching at Amherst College.

The student chapter aims to enhance networking, share scientific knowledge through seminars, and also to build community. The students also present their research in a tune-up before the INFORMS Annual Meeting each year. Lasting friendships are made (and even a few marriages) through the chapter. Its members come not only from the Isenberg School but also from the College of Engineering at UMass Amherst and from the Manning College of  Information and Computer Sciences.

I have been the Faculty Advisor of the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter since 2004.

To learn more about the Chapter, its Officers, and its activities, please, visit its website: https://websites.umass.edu/umassinf/

Outstanding Operations & Information Management Awards Celebration 2025!

Last evening, we had our second annual Operations & Information Management (OIM) Awards Celebration. Our Isenberg School of Management OIM Department, during this lovely evening ceremony and delicious buffet banquet at The Inn at Boltwood in Amherst, MA, recognized the outstanding award recipients.

Congratulations to ALL the amazing students receiving the awards last evening and to the recipient of the OIM Distinguished Alumni Award Brian Howell! The awards celebration was stunning - with excellent organization, thanks to the Department Chair Senay Solak, the Associate Department Chair Michele Burch, and our superb Office Manager Samantha Whittle. My colleague Dr. Oscar Lopez, took many photos of the event.  

The students inspire us: the OIM Exceptional Impact Scholarship Recipients: Joseph Ganley, Jasmine Tran, Anna Wagner, and Elizabeth Elvin; the Isenberg Senior Leadership Award Recipient: Shane DeRubeis; the Isenberg Academic Excellence Award Recipient: Fiona Tanikonda plus Hunter Edwards and Emma Dengler, both nominated for the William F. Field Alumni Scholar Award. Congratulations also to: Sydney Edlund, who received The NCG Operations and Information Scholarship Award and to Gavin Acocelli, the recipient of The Nagurney Scholarship. Gavin is still in Florence, Italy on an exchange program but will be back for the University of Massachusetts Amherst graduation. Kudos to Patrick Little on receipt of the RSM U.S. Foundation Consulting Scholarship and to Macy Ring for her receipt of the David J. Czarnecki Scholarship. Congrats to the OIM Elevate Scholarship Recipients: Treyden Finlay, Carolin Z., Julia Sheridan, and Nicholas Blinn! Bravo to OIM Elevate Scholarship (PhD) Recipients: Mantek Bhatia and Dana Hassani, who is my PhD student in Operations Management.

The above group photo includes faculty, Brian Howell, and also some friends. It was a truly memorable evening and the food was exceptional and included salmon, lovely salads, chowder, breads, and yummy desserts. Wishing our students all the best as they graduate and assume their professional careers! 

Thrilled that My Blackett Lecture paper, "NetwORks and Policies: OR to the Rescue," is Now Published and Free Access!

I would like to express my deepest appreciation to The Operational Research Society for publishing my  Blackett Lecture paper, "NetwORks and Policies: OR to the Rescue," in its flagship journal, the Journal of the Operational Research Society (JORS),  and for making it free to access through 2025! JORS recently celebrated its 75th anniversary and is the oldest journal in Operational Research (OR).

The full paper can be downloaded from the link:  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01605682.2025.2494706?src=exp-la#d1e107

For a post on the incredible experience of delivering the Blackett Lecture on December 5, 2024 at The Royal Society in London, England, click here: https://annanagurney.blogspot.com/2024/12/an-incredible-blackett-lecture.html

I have enjoyed, over the years, reading other Blackett Lecture papers and have even used several of them in my classes. Deeply honored to have been selected as a Blackett Lecturer and to be "in the company" of such former Blackett Lecturers as: Arnold Barnett, Luc Van Wassenhove, and William Cooper, who has since passed away. 

Fascinating Presentation on Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) for Disaster Risk Reduction

This past Friday, we had the pleasure of hearing from Dr. Marta Vicarelli, who spoke in our UMass Amherst INFORMS Speaker Series. Her presentation at the Isenberg School of Management was fascinating. In this Speaker Series, we highlight thought leaders who are breaking barriers and boundaries.

With University of Massachusetts Amherst emphasizing sustainability, this presentation could not have been more timely. The topics discussed included biodiversity loss, and mitigation and adaptation as responses to climate change. Dr. Vicarelli structured her seminar in a very engaging way asking whether 

1. Are NBS effective in increasing resilience and 

2. Are they cost-effective? 

Dr. Vicarelli is a leader in NBS and shared with us many highlights of her important studies. There were many questions from the audience. It was clear that NBS can be powerful mechanisms for disaster risk reduction. We could have listened for hours! The lunch afterwards at The Commonwealth Restaurant at UMass Amherst was lovely and our conversations continued. Below is a collage of photos from the event, along with the poster, which was kindly designed by Ismael Pour, who is the UMass Amherst INFORMS Chapter President this year. It was great to have faculty from my OIM Department take part and also many of the Chapter Officers!

My Agricultural Supply Chain Networks Under Uncertainty Seminar is Now Online, Thanks to CORS (Canadian Operational Research Society)

I am grateful to Dr. Anjali Aswathi for inviting me to present on April 11, 2025 in a CORS event. Dr. Aswathi is the President of the Canadian Operational Research Society,

The title of my presentation was, "Agricultural Supply Chain Networks Under Uncertainty."

The link to my slide deck for the lecture is here: https://supernet.isenberg.umass.edu/visuals/CORS-Nagurney-2025.pdf

The link to the video recording on Youtube is here: https://youtu.be/AIbWpVPM4uU

The above video recording also includes the presentation by Dr. Emma Freninger, which followed my presentation.

It was also very thoughtful of the CORS President to provide the above certificate. 

Thanks to my PhD students and all others who attended our virtual presentations with special thanks to Ismael Pour for writing up some of the highlights on the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter blog: https://websites.umass.edu/umassinf/2025/04/13/two-talks-in-one-day/

Our research on agricultural supply chain networks continues!

Thanking Dr. Khama Ennis for Her Brilliant Guest Lecture in My Humanitarian Logistics Class

 A very important feature of the Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare class that I teach at the Isenberg School of Management, UMass Amherst is guest lectures from outstanding practitioners. There are truly "heroes" among us. On March 27, 2025 (before I headed to the airport to fly to the University of Louisville to give an invited seminar), the students and I had the incredible honor of hearing Khama Ennis, MD, MPH, FACEP, FAIHM speak on her journey from being born in Jamaica to becoming a leading medical professional, heading the ER department at the Cooley Dickinson Hospital, becoming a documentary maker, and even working at Bellevue Hospital in NYC during 9/11! The messages from students continue as to the impact that her guest lecture made on them. 

Dr. Ennis's intelligence, courage, creativity, and care for her patients and community are truly inspiring. We are incredibly lucky to now have Dr. Ennis with us at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Health Services. A short bio of Dr. Ennis can be found here: https://www.umass.edu/uhs/about/directory/khama-ennis-md-mph. Her first alma mater is also my alma mater - Brown University.  

Dr. Ennis's documentary, Faces of Medicine, "explores the paths of Black female physicians in the United States," of which there are very few: https://www.facesofmedicine.org/.  She kindly allowed us to view the documentary, which I found to be profound, inspiring, and, actually, very elegant. It was wonderful to hear from other female Black doctors, some of whom are in our region of western Massachusetts!

It was poignant to hear from a student in the class, whose family also comes from Jamaica, as to the impact that Dr. Ennis's presentation had on her.

It is such a small world. Dr. Ennis trained at MGH in Boston where our cousin, Dr. Toby Nagurney, was head of the ER and also a faculty member at the Harvard Medical School. I shared photos with him of Dr. Ennis with my students and he was delighted. He said that she has not changed at all.  

And, when, upon the return from speaking at a conference in Buenos Aires 15 years ago, and while taking a walk in our neighborhood, I slipped and fell where a pothole had been recently patched up, and our UMass Health Services, for some reason, could not treat the scar on  my bleeding forehead, I headed to the Cooley Dickinson ER. There, after about 4 hours of a grueling wait, which I blogged about https://annanagurney.blogspot.com/2010/06/operations-and-emergency-room.html , Dr. Ennis came to the rescue and essentially "glued" the wound.

Thank you, Dr. Ennis, for all that you have done and are doing! We are so lucky to now have you at the UMass UHS (Health Services)!

Three Papers Accepted in One Week!

My Mother always said that "good news comes in threes" and this week we certainly had some much appreciated good news.

My paper, "NetwORks and Policies: OR to the Rescue," which is based on the Blackett Lecture that I delivered at The Royal Society in London, England on December 5, 2024, thanks to The Operational Research Society, was accepted for publication in the Journal of the Operational Research Society. And, incredibly, I received the galleys of the paper yesterday (a Saturday) and they were in great shape. Below is the first page.

And, since the Blackett Lecture experience was so special I include a collage below made of photos from the event, with deep gratitude for all that took part.

Many thanks also to The Operational Research Society for posting my Blackett Lecture online on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-LsIEsi-m0

Also, we heard from the International Transactions in Operational Research that the paper, "Integrated Crop and Cargo War Risk Insurance: Application to Ukraine," that I co-authored with my PhD student Ismael Pour and Professor Borys Kormych of the Odesa Law Academy in Ukraine, was accepted for publication. We hope to receive the galleys soon. Professor Kormych is a Virtual Scholar in our terrific UMass Amherst - Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) partnership. He was in the first cohort and is also in the second cohort. You can read more about the Virtual Scholars and their Faculty Hosts at the Isenberg School of Management here: https://www.umass.edu/global-affairs/news/kyiv-school-economics-and-university-massachusetts-amherst-launch-second-round-virtual-scholar

We heard the good news shortly after Ismael Pour presented the paper in the doctoral seminar in Management Science that I am teaching this semester. We took the nice photo below with him and Yongdong Chen and Samira Samadi (both also PhD students in the seminar) after Ismael's presentation.

Ismael will present this paper at the POMS Conference in Atlanta next month.

Also, Samira (full first name is Samirasadat) and I got the paper, "Multicommodity Trade, Tariffs, and Rerouting," accepted in a very special volume: Convex and Variational Analysis with Applications: In Honor of Terry Rockafellar’s 90th Birthday. Panos M. Pardalos and Themistocles M. Rassias, Editors, Springer Nature Switzerland AG. This is a very interesting and timely paper, given the trade wars that are happening now in real time. It discusses the evasion of tariffs and impacts through rerouting, with minimum processing, except for repackaging/relabeling in other countries.

We are grateful to the Editors and reviewers of our papers.

I Had a Great Time Speaking on Agricultural Supply Chain Networks at the University of Louisville in Kentucky

I returned from Louisville, Kentucky, past midnight. Immediately after my Humanitarian Logistics & Healthcare class at the Isenberg School of Management this past Thursday, I headed to Bradley airport for my flight to Detroit, and onwards to Louisville. I was very excited to have been invited to speak at the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Louisville. I was invited by Professor Lihui Bai, who, along with Professor Monica Gentili, co-directs the Logistics and Distribution Institute there. Professor Bai's PhD advisor at the University of Florida was Don Hearn, who was a good friend of my PhD advisor, Stella Dafermos of Brown University. Both have passed away.

It was also wonderful to be in a warmer climate with even flowers, after a very long winter in New England. It was great to meet in the morning with Professors Yunmei Liu and Thomas Riedel (a University of Massachusetts Amherst PhD alumnus), and to hear Professor Bai's PhD students speak on their fascinating research! One of Dr. Bai's PhD students is now working with one of my former PhD students and Dr. Bai.  A feature of academia that I love is all the connections that we have across the miles. Thanks also to Professor Brian Yueshuai He for meeting with me and discussing congestion pricing in Manhattan. He has a PhD from the Tandon School at NYU.   I thoroughly enjoyed speaking about agricultural supply chain networks and the many challenges that exist today (including tariffs) and how we quantify resilience and robustness under disaster scenarios. I also spoke on making an impact and interacting with journalists and the media as well as legislators. The Q&A was excellent after my presentation and we took a nice group photo.

The lunch at the University Club with Interim School of Business Dean Jeff Guan, the Chair of Computer Science and Engineering Wei Zhang, and Dr. Bai, which included oysters, was delicious. Another highlight was a group discussion with the IE PhD students, from so many countries (Turkey, Iran, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh....). Their energy, enthusiasm, and passion for their research are uplifting. I was surprised by a beautiful gift of stunning coasters presented to me with Kentucky Derby artwork on them.  We will use them when we toast the derby in early May! 

Sincerest thanks to all and especially to Professor Lihui Bai for the exceptional hospitality extended to me and for the great attention to detail in organizing my visit.

Many thanks to Delta for terrific 4 flights and for upgrades! 

Thanks to Mr. Ryan Avery, Regional Disaster Officer of the American Red Cross

As an educator, I hope to inspire my students in all the classes that I teach and also to impart knowledge gained from years of doing research and teaching a plethora of courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels.

This spring semester, I am, again, teaching my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare class at the Isenberg School of Management. The class attracts students not only from our business school, but also from Public Health and from Engineering at UMass Amherst. The class meets, bright and early, on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8:30AM. The scheduling of this course so early makes sense since a very important part of the course is hearing from expert practitioners, some of whom  travel close to 2 hours to give a guest lecture. 

This past Thursday,  we had the great honor and pleasure of having Mr. Ryan Avery, a Regional Disaster Officer (RDO) for the American Red Cross (ARC), speak in my Humanitarian Logistics & Healthcare class. 

Ryan's presentation was so informative and engaging that we all left energized, inspired, filled with hope, and grateful for the work that the ARC does in alleviating suffering. Ryan manages an ARC team of 12 employees and 750 volunteers and serves as a member of the Northeast Division Response Management Team as an Assistant Director of Workforce.  

He began his Red Cross journey in 2010 as a Disaster Cycle Services Volunteer in Connecticut, serving in this capacity for 6 years. In 2016, Ryan transitioned to becoming an employee with the ARC, working in different roles with the Wisconsin and Massachusetts teams, and as an RDO since 2023. His wealth of experience in responding to numerous national disaster relief operations including Hurricanes Matthew, Irma, Maria, Laura, Ian, and even to the 2021 Afghan Repatriation, Hurricane Helene, and the recent DCA plane crash left us awe-struck. It was very impressive to hear how the ARC continues to innovate; to be as efficient as possible; to focus on preparedness as well as on response, and to even work on long-term recovery programs. There are true heroes among us - many thanks to Mr. Ryan Avery and to the American Red Cross!

I presented Ryan with a framed Professor for a Day certificate signed by our Isenberg School Dean Anne P. Massey. I also followed up with a formal Thank You letter for his outstanding presentation and copied it to several ARC officials. I continue to get emails from students who were incredibly moved by his presentation and by his willingness to answer so many questions. During these very challenging times, goodness and kindness and professionalism of our disaster relief workers give me hope as does the appreciation of my students for the workers' courage and selflessness. 

President of the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) Back at UMass Amherst

Yesterday, was a very busy, fascinating day with the return of Dr. Tymofiy Mylovanov to UMass Amherst. Mylovanov is the long-term President of the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) in Ukraine. He has led this private university for over 3 years in war-time. Enrollment has tripled; many new programs have been started, including in engineering, an, through its KSE Institute, numerous timely white papers have been published, that are regularly cited in the media. KSE, even in wartime, has hosted many dignitaries and thought leaders. Mylovanov regularly speaks to the media, including CNN.

The day was blustery, with 60 mile an hour winds. Mylovanov told me about the turbulence on his flight from Reagan National in DC to Bradley Airport (our local airport) in Connecticut. Luckily, on the third attempt, the pilot landed the plane safely!

I had helped to organize his visit and talk, with assistance from the Office of Global Affairs and the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter. It was Mylovanov's 3rd visit to UMass Amherst since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Shortly after that date, I was elected Co-Chair of the KSE Board of Directors but continue to serve on its International Academic Board. Very quickly UMass Amherst and KSE signed a series of MOUs and our global partnership was established.

Thanks to the Office of Global Affairs at UMass Amherst and its Director, Vice Provost Dr. Kalpen Trivedi, and Kim Stender for organizing the excellent lunch at The Commonwealth Restaurant with Provost Fouad Abd-El-Khalick, Dr. Trivedi, the Dean of Social and Behavioral Sciences Dr. Karl Rethemeyer, and Senior Associate Dean Lisa Masteralexis joining us. 

Since Mylovanov is having a big birthday in a few days, we surprised him with dessert and Happy Birthday and his name written out in chocolate.

Afterwards, we had a terrific, informal Meet and Great in the Elkins Room at the Isenberg School, which included the exchange students from KSE, some of our Operations Management PhD students, my OIM Department Chair, Professor Senay Solak, and Professor Bogdan Prokopovych.

We then, as a group, headed to the IALS building where Mylovanov gave the talk, "Future of Europe if Ukraine Loses," to a packed audience of students, faculty, and staff from UMass Amherst, and even from Amherst College and the community. The UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter, whose President this year is my PhD student, Ismael Pour, did a fantastic job promoting this event. In fact, the announcement for Mylovanov's seminar was posted all week on the UMass Amherst homepage!

There was a great reception afterwards with delicious food and desserts.

We escorted Dr. Mylovanov back to his car and onwards to Bradley and DC.  Today, he flies to London and will visit several cities in different countries before his return to KSE and Kyiv.

Below is a collage of photographs from his very special visit.

Thanks to all who were able to join us!

2025 Panel with the Exchange Students from the Kyiv School of Economics in Ukraine

This was a very tough week, beginning with Monday, February 24, 2025, the 3rd anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine,  followed by the visit of Ukraine's President Zelenskyi to the Oval Office in DC on Friday, February 28.

In the afternoon of February 27, we hosted a panel at the Isenberg School of Management with the exchange students from the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) in Ukraine. I'd like to thank the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter and its President, Ismael Pour, for designing a nice flyer for the event and for handling the promotion and logistics.

Below is a collage of photos and the flyer.

It was an honor to moderate this panel with my colleague, Dr. Bogdan Prokopovych.

The slide deck of my presentation, with some background on the UMass Amherst - KSE partnership, which includes the student exchange program as well as a Virtual Scholar Program with scholars in Ukraine, can be found on the Supernetwork Center website: https://supernet.isenberg.umass.edu/visuals/KSEExchangeStudentPanel2025.pdf

Many thanks to all who came to support our four outstanding exchange students from Ukraine! Their work ethic, dedication, courage, friendliness, love of their homeland, and appreciation of all that UMass Amherst has to offer, are inspiring.

Tariffs and Trade - Some of Our Studies

Today has been quite the day. It is just mid-afternoon, and, in addition to a Kyiv School of Economics Board of Directors meeting on Zoom on various important issues, I managed, as of now, to do 4 interviews with the media on Trump, tariffs, and trade, because (we will see if this comes to pass), as of midnight tonight, Trump is to impose 25% tariffs on products from our neighbor Canada and 10% tariffs on products from China. The tariffs on Mexican products have been "paused" for 30 days, due to an agreement between the two Presidents. The situation is incredibly dynamic and volatile.

When I agree to interview requests, it is on topics that are not only timely but ones that we have conducted research on. I  remember fondly when we began to write on the impacts of tariffs (and there are several types, I might add). Colleagues, who were then at Cornell University, Charles F. Nicholson and Phillip M Bishop, were working on impacts of ad valorem tariffs on dairy products from Mexico, had reached out to me and then visited me at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. We published a series of papers, including one in the Annals of Operations Research. Since then, collaborations (and publications) have continued, many with a focus on agricultural products and the impacts of trade policies. Thanks to my co-authors: Dana Hassani, Oleg Nivievskyi, Pavel Martyshev, Deniz Besik, PhD, Michelle Li, June Dong, Ladimer Nagurney, and Mojtaba Salarpour for research that continues to resonate, with acknowledgment to journals, including: the Journal of Global Optimization, the European Journal of Operational Research, Transportation Research E, and the International Transactions in Operational Research, that have published our work on tariffs and other policy instruments (such as quotas and subsidies) and their impacts on commodity flows, producer and consumer prices, and consumer welfare! And for a recent podcast that I did on Talk The Talk with Bill Newman and Buz Eisenberg, for WHMP, on Trump, tariffs and tradeoffs, click here: https://soundcloud.com/whmp/umass-isenberg-school-prof

Below is a collage of first pages of several of our papers on tariffs.

You can find many preprints of the above articles and other ones on the Supernetwork Center website: https://supernet.isenberg.umass.edu/dart.html

Our In Memoriam for Dr. Marguerite Frank Is Now Published and Open Access!

The daughters of Dr. Marguerite Straus Frank informed me over the recent holiday season that she had passed away at the age of 97 on December 11, 2024 in Palo Alto.

I quickly notified Professor Immanuel M. Bomze, the Editor in Chief of the EURO Journal on Computational Optimization (EJCO), of this sad news and he then asked me to partner with him in composing an In Memoriam for Marguerite for EJCO.

Marguerite had been a friend and I even had a photo of her in my presentation on the panel, "What Our Past Can Tell Us About Our Future," that took place at the INFORMS Seattle meeting in October, and that I had written about; see https://annanagurney.blogspot.com/2024/11/many-thanks-to-informs-history.html

Despite it being the holiday period, Immanuel and I managed to write the In Memoriam and it did take a lot of research to ensure accuracy. We were in communications with her daughters: Dr. Claudine Frank and Dr. Isabelle Frank. Since Marguerite and I shared some common research interests, writing the In Memoriam brought back many memories, including when she visited me at the Isenberg School and when I hosted her talk at MIT, when I held an NSF Visiting Professorship for Women there. 

We completed the In Memoriam, but the publisher had "technical difficulty," and it took almost 3 weeks to receive the galleys.  Luckily, it was quickly published online. Plus, the In Memoriam is open access.

You may read and download it here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2192440625000012?via%3Dihub

We shared the In Memoriam with the daughters and they were very appreciative.

Marguerite is best known for being the co-developer of the Frank-Wolfe (1956) algorithm. She faced challenges as a female in STEM but left a lasting legacy. I enjoyed our discussions on the Braess Paradox, which was even a theme in my doctoral dissertation at Brown University.

I am also very grateful to Immanuel Bomze for spearheading an annual paper prize in his journal named after Marguerite. As he wrote to her daughters: "We will keep the memory alive, also with the help of the annual EJCO Award."  More info can be found in the In Memoriam.

Some Recent Coverage of Our Research in the Media

Next Monday, President-elect Donald Trump will be inaugurated for his second term in office. We can expect a quite dynamic, volatile period. I believe that the research that we have been doing will be extremely relevant from the modeling of tariffs and other policy instruments, such as quotas, and their impacts on a variety of product supply chains, to start.

I am gearing up for media inquiries and believe that, as an educator, it is very important to respond and to inform the public.

In the past few weeks, during the winter break at the University of Massachusetts, I have not only been getting ready for the spring semester and have also been writing papers, but, in addition, I've had several interviews and press releases on our work.

I am very pleased that the professional society of INFORMS issued a press release on our recent paper, "A Multiperiod, Multicommodity, Capacitated International Agricultural Trade Network Equilibrium Model with Applications to Ukraine in Wartime,"  published in Transportation Science. This paper I co-authored with my PhD student Dana Hassani and with Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) colleagues: Oleg Nivievskyi, and Pavlo Martyshev. The press release is available here: https://www.informs.org/News-Room/INFORMS-Releases/News-Releases/New-Study-Shows-How-Ukraine-War-Impacts-Global-Food-Supply-Chain-Urges-Alternative-Routes-for-Grains. Many thanks to Ashley Smith of INFORMS for this excellent writeup!

Also, UMass Amherst released this press announcement https://www.umass.edu/news/article/anna-nagurney-co-edits-new-book-disaster-management-research on my latest book, Dynamics of Disasters: From Natural Phenomena to Human Activity, co-edited with colleagues: Ilias S. Kotsireas, Panos M. Pardalos, Sten Pickl, and Chrys Vogiatzis and published by Springer Nature in late December. This book is extremely timely and contains 10 refereed chapters plus a preface. 

Recently, I was on Talk The Talk on WHMP to speak with Bill Newman and Bud Eisenberg on Trump, Tariffs and Tradeoffs: https://soundcloud.com/whmp/umass-isenberg-school-prof?in=whmp/sets/on-ice

We had such a lively discussion that they have asked me to come back after the inauguration.

And, just a few days ago, I had the pleasure of speaking with Janet Nguyen of Marketplace for her article, "Do blood donation centers sell your blood?" https://www.marketplace.org/2025/01/10/do-blood-donation-centers-sell-your-blood/ My research group has written many studies on blood supply chains and my article in The Conversation,  published shortly after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 pandemic, helped to influence national policy on blood donations; see: https://annanagurney.blogspot.com/2023/12/honored-to-have-played-part-in.html

In late December I was interviewed for this deeply researched article on sanctions on Russia and chemicals published by Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-billionaires-whose-chemical-factories-fuel-russias-war-machine-2024-12-30/

And, not long before that, I was interviewed for this article in The New York Times on how Trump's tariffs would deal a big blow to the auto industry: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/26/business/trump-tariffs-mexico-canada-cars.html

Stay tuned! Interesting times await us!

Congratulations and Kudos for 2024

2024  was truly a remarkable year, despite challenges.

On December 5, 2024, I was deeply honored to present the Blackett Lecture at The Royal Society in London, England, thanks to the OR Society. It was an incredible event and I thank the OR Society President Dr. Gilbert Owusu for the warm introduction and for his great moderation of the Q&A following my lecture. It was extra special to have my husband, Professor Ladimer S. Nagurney, Isenberg School Dean Anne P. Massey and Associate Dean Bill Brown in attendance, as well as Diane Isenberg and Center Associate Dr. Stavros Siokos. Thanks to all who attended. The reception and dinner were fabulous and the OR Society has kindly posted a recoding of my Blackett Lecture on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-LsIEsi-m0

And, in late December 2024, our latest Dynamics of Disasters: From Natural Phenomena to Human Activity volume was published by Springer Nature!  The book is a collection of 10 refereed chapters. I was delighted to work with my fellow Co-Editors: Ilias S. Kotsireas, Panos M. Pardalos, Stefan Pickl, and Chrys Vogiatzis on this volume. It is based on papers, and, also, invited ones, that were presented at our Dynamics of Disasters conference in Piraeus, Greece, in July 2023. Full information about the book can be found here: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-74006-0 I'd like to take the opportunity to also thank the reviewers of the chapters. It was special to have a paper, co-authored with my Isenberg School PhD student Dana Hassani and with colleagues at the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) in Ukraine: Oleg Nivievskyi and Pavlo Martyshev published in this volume:  https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-74006-0_7.

And, speaking of Ukraine, I continued to serve as the Co-Chair of the Board of Directors of KSE and on its International Academic Board, with many meetings, and important issues requiring thoughtful and intense decision-making. I was thrilled to have the University of Massachusetts Amherst announce the second cohort of Virtual Scholars, based in Ukraine, thanks to our great partnership. All ten of the Virtual Scholars have been matched with faculty at the Isenberg School of Management.  I am honored to be working with three of them - Professor Myroslava Kushnir at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv,  Professor Borys Kormych at the Odesa Law Academy, and with Dr. Pavlo Martyshev of KSE, who was also part of our first cohort, as were Myroslava and Borys.  The Office of Global Affairs, led by Dr. Kalpen Trivedi, issued this nice press release: https://www.umass.edu/global-affairs/news/kyiv-school-economics-and-university-massachusetts-amherst-launch-second-round-virtual-scholar. Also, as part of this partnership, in Fall 2024, we had 5 exchange students from KSE studying at UMass Amherst and in the Spring 2025 semester we will have 4 staying on.

This was an amazing year for conferences with the 70th birthday conference in honor of Professor Panos Pardalos taking place in mid June in beautiful Halkidiki, Greece, with presentations by Center Associate Professor Dmytro Matsypura of the University of Sydney and me on joint work with Professor Ladimer S. Nagurney of the University of Hartford and my PhD student Ismael Pour. Both the EURO conference in Copenhagen this summer and the INFORMS conference in Seattle this past fall served as outstanding venues for many Center Associates to present their research. At the EURO conference, Center Associates: Professor Tina Wakolbinger of the Vienna University of Economic and Business, Professor Deniz Besik of the University of Richmond, and Professor Sara Saberi of WPI as well as Professor Ladimer S. Nagurney, and I, all took part. At the INFORMS conference, Center Associate Dmytro Matyspura, who had traveled all the way from the University of Sydney, was busy with editorial board meetings and recruiting, and we got together also with Center Associates Professor Pritha Dutta of Willamette University and Professor Ke "Grace" Ke of Central Washington University. Another highlight was to have two of my PhD students, Ismael Pour and Samira Samadi, who joined us as new Doctoral Student Center Associates, present for the first time at an INFORMS conference in Seattle. Dana Hassani also presented. And, our UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter received the Magna Cum Laude award from INFORMS in Seattle. Hard to believe that I have served as the Chapter's Faculty Advisor since 2004. Many of the officers and members celebrated with us at the award ceremony.  Info on the chapter and its activities can be found here: https://websites.umass.edu/umassinf/. Ismael Pour is this year's Chapter President and Dana Hassani was last year's Chapter President.

This was a very busy year for seminar presentations, including at MIT and at the University of Maryland, and other presentations. I very much enjoyed giving a keynote at the Supply Chain Resilience SCRIPS Workshop in Washington DC in early October: https://annanagurney.blogspot.com/2024/10/the-supply-chain-resilience-scrips.html

We have been busy responding to numerous interview requests, including from Reuters, The New York Times, The Washington Post, AlJazeera, because of our expertise on supply chain networks. For some of the coverage by the media, see: https://supernet.isenberg.umass.edu/media/media.htm

For our recent journal articles, please visit the Supernetwork Center website:

https://supernet.isenberg.umass.edu/dart.html

For photos of many events that we were engaged in, please, see:

https://supernet.isenberg.umass.edu/cfoto/centerphotos.html

For additional news and updates, please, see the Spring 2024 and Fall 2024 Supernetwork Sentinel 

https://supernet.isenberg.umass.edu/newsletters/sentinel.html

Hoping for a 2025 New Year filled with peace, great research, conferences, and professional activities, robust health, and prosperity. Thank you for the support!