Congratulations to My PhD Student, Dana Hassani, on His Outstanding Doctoral Teaching Award

Last Friday, we had our end of the academic year All School Meeting at the Isenberg School of Management at which milestones were celebrated, announcements made, and both faculty and doctoral students were recognized for their professional contributions.

It was wonderful to see Dana Hassani, one of my PhD students in Operations Management at the Isenberg School, receive the 2026 Outstanding Doctoral Teacher Award. Dana has been in our doctoral program since late January 2022.  I enjoyed writing the nomination letter for Dana for this award and thank the Selection Committee for their hard work.

The award was presented to Dana by Associate Dean and Isenberg PhD Program Director Fousseni Chabi-Yo. Dana, for several semesters now, has taught the required course, OIM 240 - Business Data Analysis, for our undergraduates.  OIM 240 is a math heavy and technical course, which can become boring or  confusing for students. Dana reviews core course concepts multiple times to  ensure that every student has a strong grasp of the material. He also integrates lectures with real-world examples tailored to students’ interests, highlighting the applications of the content and making concepts more engaging.

Dana has shared with me how he regularly uses datasets from the  sports industry (e.g., NBA and WNBA franchises and soccer clubs) or social  media platforms. Students very much appreciate Dana’s extra effort, with many  reaching out after class to discuss the applications in more depth.

Excellent teachers can also be great researchers. Dana was recognized by the Isenberg School with the Outstanding Doctoral Student Research Award both in 2025 and in 2024. Dana has had 3 journal articles published and 1 book chapter and recently submitted another paper to a journal.

And, after the All School Meeting, was our Barbecue for Graduating Seniors, right outside of the Isenberg School.

I thank Professor Muzzo Uysal for taking the photo below before we headed out to eat and chat and meet with our soon to be graduates.

It is important to celbrate wonderful students and their achievements as they work towards their goals. Dana hopes to become a professor soon.

My post on Dana's 2025 Research Award can be read here: https://annanagurney.blogspot.com/2025/05/congratulations-to-dana-hassani-on.html

Delighted that Our Paper on Fresh Produce Trade and "Choke Points" is Published in EJOR!

The three of us worked very hard on this paper, "Fresh Produce Spatial Price Equilibrium on General Networks: Capturing Commodity Quality Deterioration Through Endogenous Transportation Time Delay Functions with Capacities," and it took three revisions (a record for me, I must say) before acceptance. My co-authors on this paper are Samirasadat "Samira" Samadi, who is one of my PhD students, and Professor Deniz Besik of the Robins School of Business at the University of Richmond.

The paper was published in a volume of the European Journal of Operational Research (EJOR) this past week, which was extra exciting since it also was the last week of classes of the academic year at UMass Amherst!

The link to the journal publication of the article is here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0377221726003759.

The work was inspired by many challenges associated with fresh produce transportation and quality of the commodities because of issues such as drought as in the Panama Canal and now the essential shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz because of the war on Iran. We capture endogeneous transportation delays due to capacity reduction on links and the impact on quality of fresh produce as it travels from supply markets to demand markets. The case study in the paper is on the global trade of bananas, a nutritious and very popular fruit, which is also important for food security. We also propose commodity quality trade network performance measures, supply-based, demand-based, and network-based, that can be applied for an individual commodity or across all commodities.

We are grateful to the EJOR Editor, Professor Mike Yearworth, who handled out paper, and to the reviewers for their comments and suggestions. My co-authors and I very much believe in the relevance and importance of the research that resulted in this paper.

Magnificent OIM Awards Celebration 2026

On April 20, 2026, my Operations and Information Management (OIM) Department at the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst helds its Awards Celebration event.

A big CONGRATULATIONS to ALL the amazing students that were recognized and to the recipient of the OIM Distinguished Alumni Award Paul Cichocki! The awards celebration, which included a delicious banquet meal at The Inn at Boltwood in Amherst, was lovely - with expert organization, thanks to the Department Chair Professor Senay Solak, the Associate Department Chair Professor Michele Burch, and our great Office Manager Samantha Whittle. 

Congratulations to: the RSM U.S. Foundation Consulting Scholarship Recipients: Iris Cabral and Kamila Velez; The NCG Operations and Information Scholarship Recipient: Wendy Zou, and to The Nagurney Scholarship Recipient: Campbell Hatcher. Bravo to the Isenberg Senior Leadership Award Recipient: Gowri Vellanki and to Spencer Zbitnoff on his Isenberg Academic Excellence Award. The OIM Exceptional Impact Scholarship Recipients are: Reese Barnett, Suzanne Patti, Alfonso Alvarez Ribeiro, and Josie Wu! Congratulations to all the OIM Elevate Scholarship Awardees: Darrius Lupo, Ryan Bonia, and Carolin Zorrilla We also recognized two PhD students with the OIM Elevate Scholarship: Yue Xue, who is pursuing her doctorate in Information Systems, and Solmaz Abbaspour, who is pursuing hers in Operations Management. 

Many thanks to the OIM Faculty Scholarship Committee Members: Professors Susan Boyer, Ying Liu, and Shirley Shmerling. Many of the faculty, students, and their supporters lingered after the ceremony as we basked in the warmth of this truly special academic community. Best to all our students as they pursue their dreams!

This was the third time that my department held such an Awards Celebration and it is one of our favorite events of the academic year. It was also very special to have Campbell Hatcher receive The Nagurney Scholarship, which my husband and I established. Campbell wrote us a lovely letter a while back. She is majoring not only in OIM but also in Sport Management and, after her graduation next week, will be joining Kerry in Wisconsin. Her work ethic and engagement in so many activities, including mentoring ones, while working about 25 hours a week are inspiring.