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.

Outstanding Guest Lecture by Mr. Seth Thayumanavan on Biotech in My Humanitarian Logistics Class

Last Thursday, I was delighted to welcome Mr. Seth Thayumanavan to my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare class at the Isenberg School of Management. His guest lecture was on the biotech industry, with a focus on background for the oncology startup that he co-founded with his father, Distinguished University Professor Thai Thayumanavan.  The name of the company is Nalam Technologies. 

The guest lecture was of great interest to my students in the class, who come from the Isenberg School, the Riccio College of Engineering at UMass Amherst, and also its School of Public Health.

His  presentation demonstrated the great passion that he has for the very important work of Nalam Therapeutics and its team. The students were captivated by the presentation that discussed the story of pharmaceutical cancer therapy and, in particular, targeted delivery systems to make cancer treatment safer and more effective plus the importance of the 4Ps: patients, payers, providers, and policy makers and the challenges associated with clinical trials and venture capital. The students appreciated Mr. Thayumanavan sharing his experiences from the valuable coursework at UPenn to the various positions that he has held. He highlighted that a career path need not be “linear” as well as the great value of networking, which I very much appreciated and agree with!

His presentation generated so many questions – always a sign of immense interest from the audience. I continue to receive comments from students who were both educated and very impressed by the guest lecture and work. We presented Mr. Thayumanavan with a framed Professor for a Day certificate, which had been signed by the Isenberg Dean Anne P. Massey!

Having expert practitioners speak to students provides for a very enriching educational experience.

I wish Nalam Technologies much success in their important work for humanity.

Thanks to Dr. Les Servi for Speaking in Our UMass Amherst INFORMS Speaker Series

On April 10, 2026, we had the honor and pleasure of having Dr. Les Servi speak in our UMass Amherst INFORMS Speaker Series. We were very excited to have Dr. Servi back at UMass Amherst. 

The title of his presentation was: “Identifying Critical Nodes in Mission Systems: An Operations Research Framework.” 

Dr. Les Servi is an Operations Research Scientist and former Chief Scientist for Cyber Operations Research at The MITRE Corporation. Earlier, he conducted research at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Bell Laboratories, and GTE Laboratories (now Verizon), and spent a sabbatical year as a visiting scientist at Harvard University and MIT.  He has served as an Associate Editor for the journals: Operations Research, Management Science, and the INFORMS Journal on Computing. He is also  a MORS Fellow, an INFORMS Fellow, and served six years on the INFORMS Board of Directors. Dr. Servi is an INFORMS VP Chapters and Forums Board member.

Dr. Servi's book, "Mission Dependency Network Analysis," was published by Springer in 2026 and he kindly presented me with a copy. It was nice to see one of my papers with Patrick Qiang cited therein.

We had a great discussion after his presentation and at lunch. Many thanks to the INFORMS Student Chapter for doing such a nice job in publicizing his presentation - the announcement even made the UMass Amherst homepage with special thanks to the Chapter President Samira Samadi.

And, after the delicious lunch at the UMass Commonwealth Restaurant, Dr. Servi was off to Logan Airport to catch a flight to DC for the INFORMS Analytics Conference, where I joined him on Sunday!

I Thoroughly Enjoyed Speaking on Trade Wars and Game Theory at the Great INFORMS Analytics Conference

Conferences can be deeply engaging and energizing and the recent INFORMS Analytics Conference at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center set new standards https://meetings.informs.org/wordpress/analytics/! Many thanks to all those who helped to make this conference a great success!

I love the serendipity of great conferences from the meeting of new colleagues to seeing friends that you did not even realize would be attending! 

There were over 500 attendees and about 60 one hour presentations. I was honored and delighted to be able speak on Trade Wars and Game Theory. Who Wins, Who Loses? The audience was terrific with many excellent, thoughtful questions. And, as promised, I have now posted the slide deck from my presentation: https://supernet.isenberg.umass.edu/visuals/Analytics-Nagurney-2026.pdf

I very much enjoyed many of the Edelman Award presentations of the finalists and the networking events. The food was also delicious and the venue was stunning! Engagement of academics with practitioners is critically important and, after I returned, I shared some of the many highlights with the students in my class at the Isenberg School of Management.

The Experience of Giving a Distinguished Engineering Lecture at Purdue University Was Extraordinary - Thank You!

Last evening I returned from a whirlwind trip to Purdue University, where I was deeply honored to deliver a Distinguished Engineering Lecture entitled: "Agricultural Supply Chain Networks: Trade, Policies, Food Security, and Resilience."

My lecture took place on March 26, 2026, and my travel from Amherst,  MA to West Lafayette, Indiana as well as back was wonderful via shuttles and two legged flights each way via American Airlines. Many thanks to the selfless, unpaid still, TSA workers at Bradley International Airport and at the Indianapolis Airport.

I'd like to thank the Purdue University College of Engineering and the Purdue University Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering for the outstanding hospitality extended to me. It was a great honor and pleasure to be introduced by Associate Dean Nikhilesh Chawla. The Distinguished Engineering Lecture took place in the stunning atrium of the Armstrong Building, named after its alumnus, the astronaut Neil Armstrong. The format was very intellectually engaging with a panel afterwards on: "Bridging Engineering and Agriculture: Innovations for Resilient Supply Chains," with fellow panelists: Purdue University Professors Maksym Chepeliev, Sivaranjani Seetharaman, and Yu She, expertly moderated by Professor Hua Cai. It was very special to be presented by James J. Solberg Head of the Edwardson School Professor Young-Jun Son with a beautiful engraved glass award afterwards. 

A big highlight, after the lively panel discussions, was to meet Associate Vice Provost and Dean of the John Martinson Honors College Professor Felisa (Preciado) Higgins and two undergraduate students from Panama! In my Distinguished Lecture, I spoke about various disruptions to agricultural supply chains (and there are many), as well as trade policies, and resilience, and noted, of course, impacts of the recent drought affecting the Panama Canal as well as wars on Ukraine and in the Middle East. Also, two undergraduate students from Jordan came up to me and presented me with a type-written project plan on Agricultural Supply Networks for their country! Fellow panelist Maksym Chepeliev was born in Ukraine and his sister is now studying at the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE). It is such a small world - I continue to serve on the Board of Directors of KSE and on its International Academic Board.

Everything surrounding my visit was organized beautifully with great attention to detail. I am very grateful to the exceptional staff members: Leza Dellinger and Cole Stonebraker for making my visit so comfortable and well-planned.

I thoroughly enjoyed the delicious welcome dinner with Professors Susan Hunter, David Johnson (who recently returned from Singapore), and Yuehwern Yih and terrific conversations; breakfast with fellow panelists and moderator; a catered lunch, plus closing dinner at a fabulous Japanese restaurant with exceptional host James J. Solberg Head Professor Young-Jun Son and faculty: Professors Reem Khir, Miaolan Xie, Sivaranjani Seetharaman, and Liwei Jiang. We had extra excitement at that dinner because of a tornado siren warning and lots of lightning. The positive excitement continued when Purdue beat Texas in the Sweet Sixteen basketball tournament.

Other highlights included a tour of the Gateway Lab, thanks to David Kish, PE, and two excellent undergraduate students, one of whom was named Kai and was from LA, and the other one, whose name I did not catch, was from Tennessee. 

I'm very grateful to Engineering Dean Arvind Raman for taking the time to meet with me and to show me, from his stunning outdoor office suite balcony, a "replica" trail of Armstrong's lunar footprints marking: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Thanks also to Professors Srinivasan Chandrasekar and Nan Kong for the friendly, engaging conversations. Amazingly, Dr. Kong remembered me when I gave a talk at the University of Pittsburgh through the INFORMS Speakers Program, when he was a graduate student there!

The meeting with Dr. Chandresakar took place in a boardroom with paintings of  Professor Yuehwern Yih, who was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, and Frank and Lillian Gilbreth. Dr. Yih is a name not only in engineering but also in ballroom dancing! She is now a Chair of  the USA Dance National DanceSport Championships, taking place in Pittsburgh.  

Many thanks for the extraordinary experience!